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THE 

LIFE     AND     WORKS 

OF 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


VOL.    VI. 


PROSE  WRITINGS 


OF 


WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT 


EDITED    BY 

PARKE     GODWIN. 


Second. 

"V 

TRAVELS,  ADDRESSES,  AND   COMMENTS. 


NEW    YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

I,    3,     AND    5    BOND    STREET. 
1884. 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

D.    APPLETON   AND    COMPANY, 


mi 


CONTENTS. 


I.  SKETCHES   OF   TRAVEL. 

PAGE 

ILLINOIS  FIFTY  YEARS  AGO        ......      3 

A  TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH  .....  23 

THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST  .  .  .  .  .  .51 

GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE  ......  83 

'CUBA  AND  THE  CUBANS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   I2O 

.A  VISIT  TO  MEXICO  .......         148. 

II.   OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

Louis  KCSSUTH     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .189 

OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS          .  .  .  .194 

Music  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  .          .          .          .          .203 

THE  NEWSPAPER  PRESS         ......         208 

FREDERICK  SCHILLER       .  .  .  .  .  .  .215 

JOHN  WINTHROP  .......         221 

A  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS     .......   225 

THE  ACADEMY  OF  DESIGN    .  .  .  .  .  .         230 

MEXICO  AND  MAXIMILIAN       -  .  .  .  .  .  .  237 

FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE         .  .  .  .  .242 

THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH        .......  257 

THE  METROPOLITAN  ART  MUSEUM  ....         261 

TRANSLATORS  OF  HOMER  .  .  .  .  .  .  267 

THE  MERCANTILE  LIBRARY  .  .  .  .  .  .         270 

ITALIAN  UNITY     .  .          .          .          .          .  .274 

SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  .          .  .  .  .  .278 


CONTENTS. 


NEGOTIATION  vs.  WAR    .          .          .          .          .          .  •  284 

GERMAN  LITERATURE  .          .          .  .  .  .         287 

DARWIN'S  THEORY  .  .  .  .  .  .  .291 

MUNICIPAL  REFORM   •  .         294^-' 

LITERARY  MISSIONARIES  .  .  .  .    •  .298 

SHAKESPEARE  .  .  .  .  .  .         .  ,  .         300 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT          .  '       .  .  .  .  .  310  — 

ROBERT  BURNS  .......         314 

THE  PRINCETON  LIBRARY  ......   324 

FRANKLIN  AS  POET    .......         329 

NATIONAL  HONESTY         .....  .  .  .  .   332 

GOETHE.  ........         335 

MAZZINI       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -343 

III.   EDITORIAL   COMMENTS   AND   CRITICISMS. 

ON  WRITING  TRAGEDY    .          .          .          ...  .349 

AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION     .  .  .         351  — 

ON  THE  DRAMATIC  USE  OF  SCRIPTURE  CHARACTERS          .•  .   361 
THE  CHARACTER  OF  SHERIDAN       .           .           .           .           *         365 

BONAPARTE'S  CORSICAN  TRAITS  .....   370 

EFFECT  OF  CLIMATE  ON  AGE          .....         373 

ABOLITION  RIOTS.  .......   376^ 

FUNERAL  OF  AARON  BURR  ......         379 

ON  USURY  LAWS  .          .          .          .        •  .          .          .  .380 

MR.  WEBSTER'S  WIT  .          .  .  .  .  .  .         383 

SLAM,  BANG  &  Co.          .          .-          .          .          •          •  •  385 
NEW  YORK  BIRD-CATCHERS           .           .           .           .           .         387 

SENSITIVENESS  TO  FOREIGN  OPINION  .          .          .  .  389 

A  REPLY  TO  ATTACKS         .         ',          .          .          .          .         390  " 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS      .          .          .          .          ...  .393 

THE  CORN-LAW  CONTROVERSY       .....         395 

FRIAR  TUCK  LEGISLATION         .          .  .  ...  .397 

LORD  BROUGHAM'S  LAST  CONTRIBUTION  TO  SOCIAL  SCIENCE          399 
THE  UTILITY  OF  TREES       .  .  .  .  .  .         402 

A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE        .          ...          .          .  .  406 


I. 
SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY  YEARS  AGO.* 


HAGERSTOWN,  MD.,  MAY  24,  1832:  We  left  New  York 
on  the  steamboat  New  York  early  in  the  morning  (May  22d), 
and,  as  there  was  nobody  on  board  whom  I  knew,  I  passed  the 
time  downstairs  in  reading  Camoens.  When,  however,  we 
arrived  at  a  short  distance  from  New  Brunswick,  we  were  all 
landed  and  transferred  to  stage-coaches,  which  conveyed  us 
through  a  flat,  uninteresting  country  to  Bordentown,  on  the 
Delaware,  a  little  below  Trenton,  where  a  sight  of  Joseph 
Bonaparte's  grounds,  beautifully  planted  with  trees  of  various 
kinds,  with  a  spacious  mansion  and  a  towering  observatory 
that  overlooks  the  river,  made  some  amends  for  the  dulness 
of  the  previous  journey.  Embarking  on  a  little  boat,  with  a 
civil  captain,  we  arrived  at  Philadelphia  about  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  which  gave  us  a  short  opportunity  for  looking 
at  the  city  by  daylight.  It  is  better  built  than  ours,  or,  at 
least,  it  is  more  to  my  taste,  the  private  dwellings  being  solid, 
comfortable-looking  edifices,  without  that  tawdriness  which 
you  see  in  New  York  houses.  The  streets  are  remarkably 
clean,  looking  as  if  just  swept. 

At  six  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning  we  went  on  board 
the  William  Penn  for  Newcastle,  where  we  arrived  about 
nine  o'clock,  and  proceeded  on  the  railroad  to  Frenchtown,  a 

*  From  private  letters  to  Mrs.  Bryant. 


4  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

distance  of  sixteen  miles  and  a  half,  which  we  travelled  at  the 
rate  of; ten  miles  an  hour.  At  Frenchtown  the  passengers 
were  put  On  board  che  Carrol,  which  likewise  had  a  very  civil 
captain,  an  old,  fat,  rosy-faced,  respectable-looking  man;  so 
that  I  like  what  I  have  seen  of  the  boats  on  the  Delaware  and 
Chesapeake  better  than  of  those  on  the  Hudson.  The  com- 
manders are,  as  such  men  ought  to  be,  efficient,  smiling,  oblig- 
ing men.  We  sailed  down  the  Chesapeake,  a  wide  expanse 
of  water,  with  flat,  low  shores,  very  much  indented,  and  offer- 
ing scarcely  anything  to  look  at.  We  reached  Baltimore  at 
five  o'clock.  I  went  to  Barnum's  Hotel,  where  I  found  John 
Mumford,*  who  insisted  upon  introducing  me  to  Mr.  Flagg, 
Secretary  of  State  for  New  York,  and  one  of  the  New  York 
delegates  to  the  Baltimore  Convention,  which  had  just  finished 
its  labors  by  renominating  Old  Hickory  for  the  Presidency. 
Mr.  Flagg  took  me  to  a  room  where  he  made  me  go  through 
the  ceremony  of  a  particular  introduction  to  about  fifteen 
gentlemen  and  ten  ladies,  and  before  it  was  ended  I  began  to 
feel,  and  I  dare  say  to  look,  very  foolish. 

This  morning  I  set  out  again  at  five  o'clock  on  the  Balti- 
more Railroad.  There  were  in  the  cars  with  me  three  Virginia 
planters  from  the  lower  part  of  the  State,  who  had  come,  as  I 
judged  from  their  conversation,  to  attend  the  Baltimore  Con- 
vention. They  were  remarkably  intelligent  men — slovenly  in 
their  dress,  but  gentlemanly  in  their  manners,  expressing 
themselves  with  uncommon  propriety  and  good  sense,  and 
noticing  very  particularly  as  they  passed  every  object  worthy 
of  remark.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  professed  politicians,  for 
they  did  not  talk  of  politics  at  all,  but  well-informed  country 
gentlemen,  and  were,  take  them  all  together,  a  specimen  from 
which  I  am  inclined  to  judge  well  of  their  class.  Two  of 
them  exhibited  somewhat  of  that  tendency  to  metaphysical 
speculation  which  is  mentioned  as  characteristic  of  the  Vir- 
ginians. The  railroad  is  made,  for  the  greater  part  of  the 

*  A  New  York  editor. 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  5 

way,  along  the  Patapsco,  and,  after  it  leaves  that,  along  an- 
other little  stream  running  westerly.  The  work  is  expensive, 
being  cut  through  hills,  and  carried  by  high  causeways  through 
valleys,  with  stone  bridges  of  solid  masonry  over  the  streams. 
This  mode  of  travelling  is  agreeable  and  rapid.  The  vegeta- 
tion in  this  latitude  is  scarcely  more  advanced  than  in  the 
neighborhood  of  New  York.  The  dog-wood  flowers  have  not 
fallen,  and  the  azalea,  which  I  saw  in  flower  in  New  Jersey,  is 
in  flower  here  also.  Hagerstown,  twenty-five  miles  west  of 
Fredericktown,  is  a  dirty  little  town,  built  in  imitation  of  a 
city.  It  stands  in  a  limestone  country  of  irregular  surface, 
rather  fertile  and  pleasant,  which  is  more  than  I  can  say  for 
the  greater  part  of  Maryland  which  I  have  seen. 

CUMBERLAND,  MD.,  MAY  25th :  Here  I  am,  in  the  midst  of 
the  spurs  of  the  Alleghanies,  at  a  little,  ugly  town  rather  pleas- 
antly situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  near  the  foot  of 
the  Great  Alleghany  or  Back  Bone  Ridge.  Twelve  miles  be- 
yond Hagerstown  I  came  to  Clear  Spring,  so  called  from  a 
very  large  spring  in  the  village,  and  three  or  four  miles  be- 
yond I  passed  Indian  Spring,  which  is  also  a  large  spring  in 
an  enclosure  under  a  great  tree.  Near  the  spring  an  emigrat- 
ing family  had  halted  with  their  wagon,  and  had  made  a  fire 
to  cook  their  breakfast.  All  along  the  road  I  observed  fre- 
quently fires  in  the  woods  or  enclosures  by  the  wayside,  where 
women  were  washing  clothes  at  some  spring  or  brook.  Just 
beyond  Clear  Spring  we  crossed  the  first  ridge  of  the  Allegha- 
nies, and,  descending  on  the  other  side,  came  to  the  Potomac, 
on  the  banks  of  which  we  had  a  pleasant  drive  of  at  least  ten 
miles.  After  passing  a  little  town  called  Hancock,  we  crossed 
a  loftier  and  wilder  ridge,  and  so  on,  ridge  after  ridge,  each 
one  giving  a  magnificent  look  at  hill  and  dale,  till  we  descend- 
ed to  the  Potomac  again  at  Cumberland,  having  travelled 
sixty-seven  miles.  A  woman,  living  in  the  mountains,  being  in 
the  stage  with  us,  pointed  out,  in  a  lonely  hollow  on  a  stream, 
the  spot  where  the  Cottrels  murdered  an  Englishman  some 
years  since  for  the  sake  of  his  money.  "  The  Cottrels,"  said 


6  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

she,  "  were  working  hare  on  this  pike,  and  they  came  on  with 
the  Englishman  a  little  ways  on  pretence  of  chatting  with  him, 
and  as  if  in  friendship.  They  got  him  near  whar  yon  drift- 
wood lays,  and  thar  they  killed  him  in  a  thicket."  The  place 
where  this  woman  lives,  on  the  wildest  part  of  the  road,  be- 
tween two  of  the  highest  ridges  I  have  passed,  with  a  ragged 
forest  on  each  side,  is  called  Belgrove.  The  village  consists 
of  log-houses— that  is,  houses  of  hewn  logs. 

OFF  MARIETTA  :  We  breakfasted  at  Frostburg,  on  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  at  a  tavern  where  there  was  a  grate  as  large  as  a  kitch- 
en-chimney, roaring  with  a  great  fire  of  bituminous  coal,  which 
is  found  in  these  parts  in  abundance.  A  severe  frost  had  fallen 
the  night  previous,  and  the  leaves  of  several  kinds  of  trees  had 
turned  black,  as  if  scorched.  We  dined  at  Smithfield,  on  the 
Youghiogheny,  on  corned  beef  roasted,  pickled  eggs,  and  boiled 
potatoes,  with  gravy  poured  over  them  on  the  dish.  Saturday 
night  brought  us  to  Union,  in  Pennsylvania,  situated  in  the 
midst  of  a  most  beautiful  and  rich  country  of  undulating  sur- 
face. The  buildings  are  mostly  mean  and  ugly,  and  the  whole 
village,  as  all  I  have  seen  since  I  left  home,  is  arranged  without 
taste.  The  next  day  the  weather  was  fine,  though  cold,  and 
I  rode  to  Wheeling,  in  Virginia.  At  eight  o'clock  I  took  the 
steamboat  for  Cincinnati,  expecting  to  arrive  in  two  days. 

CINCINNATI,  MAY  3ist :  The  shores  of  the  Ohio  have  noth- 
ing to  distinguish  them  from  those  of  a  river  of  the  Atlantic 
States  except  the  continuity  of  the  forests  with  which  they  are 
covered,  and  the  richness  and  various  forms  of  the  foliage. 
The  appearance  of  the  woods  is  more  like  that  of  the  Berk- 
shire woods  than  those  of  any  other  part  of  the  country  I  have 
seen.  They  consist  of  oak,  sugar-maple,  hickory,  buckeye, 
which  is  a  kind  of  horse-chestnut,  the  tulip-tree,  the  button- 
wood,  and  sometimes  the  cotton-wood,  which  appears  to  be  a  gi- 
gantic poplar,  and  other  trees  common  at  the  eastward,  except 
evergreens,  of  which  there  are  none.  Springing  from  a  kindly 
soil,  they  grow  to  a  colossal  size,  and,  standing  at  a  greater 
distance  from  each  other  than  in  our  forests,  and  being  covered 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  7 

with  a  dense  foliage,  the  outline  of  each  tree  is  perceptible  to 
the  eye,  so  that  you  may  almost  count  them  by  the  view  you 
have  of  their  summits.  With  us  you  know  they  appear  blend- 
ed into  one  mass.  It  is  possible  that  somewhat  of  the  effect 
I  have  mentioned  may  be  occasioned  by  the  atmosphere.  At 
a  little  past  sunset  it  was  very  striking  ;  each  tree-top  and 
each  projecting  branch,  with  its  load  of  foliage,  stood  forth  in 
strong  and  distinct  relief,  surrounded  by  deep  shadows.  The 
aspect  of  the  shore  where  I  have  seen  it  did  not  remind  me 
at  all  of  the  Highlands.  The  round,  wooded  hills  which  over- 
look the  greater  part  of  the  way,  sometimes  approaching  close 
to  the  water,  and  at  others  receding  so  as  to  leave  a  border  of 
rich  alluvial  land,  resembled,  to  my  eye,  the  hills  of  Stock- 
bridge,  Lenox,  and  some  other  parts  of  Berkshire. 

Cincinnati  is  surrounded  by  hills,  and  they  are  all  covered 
with  wood.  They  recede  north  from  the  river  in  a  kind  of 
semicircle,  in  which  lies  the  town,  and  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  river  are  hills  also,  so  that  it  appears  to  be  placed  in  a  syl- 
van amphitheatre,  through  the  most  of  which  flows  the  Ohio, 
always  quiet  and  placid,  one  of  our  noblest  and  longest 
streams,  and  justifying,  in  the  placidity  and  evenness  of  its 
current  and  the  beauty  of  its  shores,  the  French  appellation 
of  La  Belle  Riviere.  Cincinnati  contains  thirty  thousand  in- 
habitants. Some  of  the  private  houses  are  very  handsome 
and  costly,  and  the  public  edifices  equal  the  average  of  those 
in  New  York.  Many  new  buildings  are  going  up,  and  among 
others  a  spacious  theatre.  The  market  is  well  supplied,  es- 
pecially with  strawberries,  of  which  I  have  seen  tubsful.  The 
inhabitants  appear  to  be  very  industrious  and  busy,  but  they 
have  a  sallow  look  in  comparison  with  the  people  of  the 
mountains  of  Maryland,  and  the  hills  of  Fayette  County,  in 
Pennsylvania. 

STEAMER  WATER  WITCH,  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI,  JUNE  3: 
As  the  boat  in  which  I  came  to  Louisville  would  not  set  out 
for  St.  Louis  for  a  day  or  two,  I  transferred  my  luggage 
immediately  to  the  Water  Witch  ;  but  before  she  sailed  I 


8  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

had  time  to  look  up  several  acquaintances.  The  town  is 
built  almost  entirely  of  brick,  and  has  the  appearance  of  a 
place  of  much  business — more  than  Cincinnati,  although  it 
contains  but  twelve  or  thirteen  thousand  inhabitants.  Just 
below  the  town  are  the  falls,  the  only  rapids  by  which  the 
smooth  course  of  the  Ohio  is  broken  from  Pittsburg  to  the 
Mississippi,  a  distance  of  nearly  twelve  hundred  miles.  They 
are  avoided  by  means  of  a  canal,  though  steamboats  of  the 
ordinary  size  which  navigate  the  Ohio  pass,  but  the  large 
steamboats  plying  between  Louisville  and  New  Orleans  stop 
below  the  falls. 

We  left  Louisville  at  three  o'clock  P.  M.,  and,  the  river 
being  high,  the  captain  announced  his  intention  of  going  over 
the  falls,  the  roaring  of  which  we  could  hear  from  where  we 
lay.  The  falls  are  divided  by  a  little,  low,  narrow  island,  on 
the  north  side  of  which  is  what  is  called  the  Illinois  shoot, 
and  on  the  south  side  the  Kentucky  shoot,  a  corruption  of  the 
French  word  chute.  We  took  the  Illinois  shoot,  and,  when  we 
arrived  among  the  broken  waters,  it  was  evident,  from  the 
circumspection  of  the  captain,  the  frequent  turns  we  were 
obliged  to  make,  and  the  slackening  of  the  speed  of  the  boat, 
that  the  channel  was  very  narrow.  In  one  place  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  channel  among  the  craggy  rocks  produced  a  great 
inequality  in  the  surface  of  the  stream,  so  that  the  waves  were 
like  those  of  the  sea.  In  passing  over  it,  the  boat  reeled  and 
swung  to  and  fro,  turning  up  first  one  side  of  its  keel  and  then 
the  other,  obliging  the  passengers  to  seize  hold  of  something 
to  keep  them  upright,  and  frightening  the  inmates  of  the 
ladies'  cabin.  It  was  over  in  a  moment,  however.  A  little 
below  the  falls  the  captain  stopped  the  boat  to  let  us  look 
at  the  Homer,  a  magnificent  steamboat  intended  for  the  New 
Orleans  trade,  just  built  at  New  Albany,  on  the  Indiana  side. 
It  is  as  great  a  thing  in  its  way  as  a  seventy-four.  On  the 
lower  deck  is  an  immensely  powerful  engine,  with,  I  think, 
eleven  parallel  boilers.  Here  also  is  the  kitchen  and  other 
offices.  Below  this  is  a  spacious  hold,  which  appeared  to  be 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY  YEARS  AGO.  9 

full  of  barrels  of  flour.  On  the  second  deck  or  story  is  the 
cabin,  which  had  on  each  side  twenty-five  state-rooms,  each  as 
large  as  Fanny's  bedroom  in  the  new  house,  and  each  contain- 
ing ten  berths,  with  all  the  accommodations  of  a  ship's  apart- 
ment. The  cabin  is  spacious  and  we.ll  carpeted,  and  each 
state-room  has  a  good-sized  window  of  two  sashes.  In  one 
of  them  I  saw  a  bedstead.  The  upper  deck,  or  third  story,  is 
reached  by  a  covered  staircase  directly  from  the  lower  deck, 
and  is  intended  for  what  are  called  deck  or  steerage  passengers. 
It  contains  berths  for  two  hundred  and  twenty  persons. 

Last  night  a  little  before  sunset  we  stopped  on  the  Ken- 
tucky side  to  take  in  wood.  I  went  into  a  Kentuckian's 
garden  and  gathered  roses.  His  house  was  a  large,  ugly, 
unpainted  frame  house,  with  an  underpinning  like  that  of  a 
New  England  barn — that  is,  consisting  of  here  and  there  a  log 
and  a  large  stone,  with  wide  spaces  between.  His  peas  were 
poled  with  dry  young  canes.  About  this  time  we  passed  the 
Wabash,  which  is  the  boundary  between  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
Its  waters  are  more  transparent  than  those  of  the  Ohio,  which 
are  somewhat  turbid,  and  the  difference  is  distinguishable  for 
some  distance  below  their  junction.  We  passed  the  mouths 
of  the  Cumberland  and  of  the  Tennessee  in  the  night.  This 
morning  at  half-past  seven  we  came  to  where  the  Ohio 
empties  into  the  Mississippi.  The  muddy  current  of  the 
Father  of  Waters,  covered  with  flakes  of  foam,  rushes  rapidly 
by  the  clearer  stream  of  the  Ohio,  damming  it  up  and  causing 
it  to  spread  into  a  broad  expanse  for  a  considerable  distance 
above  its  mouth.  Yet  the  Mississippi  is  not  wider,  apparently, 
than  the  Ohio.  Its  banks  are  low  and  covered  with  cotton- 
wood,  and  a  peculiar  species  of  willow,  or  with  thick  brakes 
of  cane,  the  same  of  which  fishing-poles  are  made.  Its  cur- 
rent is  so  rapid  that  we  are  obliged  to  creep  along  the  shore 
at  the  rate  of  about  four  miles  an  hour. 

MISSISSIPPI  RIVER,  SIXTY  MILES  BELOW  ST.  Louis, 
JUNE  4th :  Yesterday  the  day  was  most  beautiful — an  agree- 
able change  from  the  weather  of  the  day  previous,  which  was 


I0  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

very  hot  and  sultry.  I  took  occasion  to  go  on  shore  in  the 
State  of  Missouri  while  the  captain  was  taking  in  wood,  and 
examined  some  of  the  plants  and  trees  of  the  country.  The 
shores  for  the  whole  distance  were  low  and  unhealthy.  The 
banks  are  continually  dropping  into  the  river,  which  is  full  of 
large,  wooded  islands,  and  very  irregular  in  its  course.  I  have 
seen  no  prairies  thus  far,  as  the  Mississippi  everywhere  rolls 
through  stately  woods,  in  the  midst  of  which  you  see,  once  in 
five  or  ten  miles,  perhaps,  a  log-cabin. 

Yet  the  whole  scene  appeared  beautiful  to  me.  The  sun- 
shine, whether  it  was  fancy  or  reality,  seemed  richer  and  more 
golden  than  it  is  wont  to  be  in  our  climate,  and  the  magnifi- 
cent forests,  covered  with  huge  vines  of  various  kinds,  seemed 
worthy  to  flourish  under  so  glowing  a  sun.  This  morning 
we  stopped  to  get  wood  at  a  little  town  called  Chester,  just 
below  the  mouth  of  the  Kaskaskia,  on  the  Illinois  side,  where 
we  learned  that  all  the  State  was  in  alarm  about  the  Indians, 
who  had  made  an  incursion  to  the  east  of  the  Illinois  River 
and  murdered  several  families.  You  have  probably  seen  that 
previous  to  this  there  had  been  an  engagement  between  the 
Indians  and  a  detachment  of  the  whites,  in  which  the  latter 
were  defeated  with  the  loss  of  fifteen  persons.  I  shall  be 
obliged  to  relinquish  my  projected  route  to  Chicago,  which 
is  said  to  be  unsafe,  in  consequence  of  the  neighborhood  of 
the  savages.  In  St.  Louis,  where  the  steamboat  is  carrying 
us  as  fast  as  it  can,  which  is  slowly  enough,  we  also  learn 
there  has  been  a  commotion  of  another  nature.  An  inmate 
of  a  low  house,  called  Indian  Margaret,  being  part  Indian, 
stabbed  a  white  man  about  a  fortnight  since  in  a  quarrel,  and 
he  died  of  the  wound.  The  inhabitants  were  so  exasperated 
that  they  rose  en  masse  and  attacked  all  the  low  houses  in  the 
place,  tore  down  two,  set  fire  to  a  third,  and  burned  the  beds 
and -other  furniture  in  all  of  them.  A  black  man  called  Abra- 
ham, who  was  the  owner  of  fourteen  of  these  places,  having 
made  a  fortune  in  this  way,  was  seized,  a  barrel  of  tar  was 
emptied  upon  him,  and  he  was  then  slipped  into  a  feather  bed. 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY    YEARS  AGO.  H 

The  people,  among  whom  were  some  of  the  most  respectable 
inhabitants  of  the  place,  began  the  work  early  in  the  morning 
and  kept  it  up  until  sunset,  while  the  magistrates  stook  look- 
ing on.  Abraham  made  his  escape  to  Canada,  and  Indian 
Margaret  is  in  prison. 

ST.  Louis,  JUNE  5th :  We  arrived  here  this  morning  at  three 
o'clock.  St.  Louis  is  beautifully  situated  on  a  hill  overlook- 
ing the  river.  Two  handsome  houses  a  little  out  of  town  are 
erected  on  old  Indian  mounds,  on  which  the  forest-trees  have 
been  thinned  out.  On  Saturday  evening  we  passed  Cape 
Girardeau,  a  rather  neat-looking  French  settlement,  fifty  miles 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio,  on  a  green  bluff — and  a  little 
while  since  we  came  to  the  old  settlement  of  St.  Genevieve, 
where  we  stopped  to  take  in  freight.  I  went  on  shore  and 
talked  to  the  men  and  women,  who  are  very  dark  complex- 
ioned — some  as  dark  as  Indians,  but  with  a  decided  French 
physiognomy.  Most  of  them  could  speak  broken  English,  but 
preferred  to  converse  in  their  own  tongue.  The  shores  of  the 
Missouri  side  now  begin  to  rise  into  precipices,  some  of  which 
are  highly  picturesque.  It  is,  however,  a  cold,  gray  day,  and 
natural  objects  by  no  means  have  the  beauty  which  they  bor- 
rowed yesterday  from  the  state  of  the  atmosphere. 

There  is  much  talk  in  St.  Louis  concerning  the  Indians. 
The  families  lately  murdered  lived  on  Rock  River,  to  the  west 
of  the  Illinois  River.  There  were  three  families,  consisting  of 
fifteen  persons  in  all.  Their  bodies  were  left  to  be  devoured 
by  hogs  and  dogs.  A  man  has  been  killed  in  Buffalo  Grove, 
near  Galena,  and  it  is  supposed  that  an  Indian  agent  has  been 
murdered  by  the  savages. 

JACKSONVILLE,  JUNE  i2th:  I  left  St.  Louis  on  the  6th  inst.  at 
eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  proceeded  up  the  Missis- 
sippi. I  think  I  omitted  in  my  last  to  say  anything  of  the 
scenery  on  the  river  between  St.  Genevieve  and  St.  Louis. 
The  eastern  bank  still  continues  to  be  low,  but  the  western  is 
steep  and  rocky.  The  rocks  sometimes  rise  into  lofty  preci- 
pices which  impend  over  the  river  and  are  worn  by  some 

VOL.  II.— 2 


I2  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

cause  into  fantastic  figures,  presenting  in  some  places  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  arches,  pillars,  and  cornices  of  a  ruined  city. 
Near  a  place  called  Selma  I  saw  where  one  of  these  preci- 
pices was  made  into  a  tower,  for  the  purpose  of  converting 
the  lead  of  the  neighboring  mines  into  shot.  A  small  wooden 
building  projects  over  the  verge  of  a  very  high  perpendicular 
cliff,  and  the  melted  lead  falls  from  the  floor  of  this  building 
into  a  vat  at  the  foot  of  the  precipice  filled  with  water. 

I  saw  nothing  remarkable  on  the  Mississippi  until  we  ar- 
rived within  a  few  miles  of  its  junction  with  the  Missouri.  I 
then  perceived  that  the  steamboat  had  emerged  from  the 
thick,  muddy  water,  in  which  it  had  been  moving,  into  a  clear, 
transparent  current.  We  were  near  the  eastern  bank,  and  this 
was  the  current  of  the  Mississippi.  On  the  other  side  of  us 
we  could  discern  the  line  which  separated  it  from  the  turbid 
waters  of  the  Missouri.  We  at  length  arrived  at  the  meeting 
of  these  two  great  streams.  The  Missouri  comes  in  through 
several  channels  between  islands  covered  with  lofty  trees,  and 
where  the  two  currents  encounter  each  other  there  is  a  vio- 
lent agitation  of  the  waters,  which  rise  into  a  ridge  of  short, 
chopping  waves,  as  if  they  were  contending  with  each  other. 
The  currents  flow  down  side  by  side  unmingled  for  the  dis- 
tance of  twelve  miles  or  more,  until  at  length  the  Missouri 
prevails,  and  gives  its  own  character  and  appearance  to  the 
whole  body  of  water. 

At  a  place  called  Lower  Alton,  a  few  miles  above  the 
mouth  of  the  Missouri,  we  stopped  to  repair  one  of  the  boilers, 
and  I  climbed  up  a  steep  grassy  eminence  on  the  shore,  which 
commanded  a  very  extensive  view  of  the  river  and  surround- 
ing country.  Everything  lay  in  deep  forest.  I  could  see  the 
woods  beyond  the  Missouri,  but  the  course  of  that  stream  was 
hidden  by  the  gigantic  trees  with  which  it  is  bordered. 
On  every  side  was  solitude,  vast,  dark,  and  impenetrable. 

When  I  awoke  the  next  morning  we  were  in  the  Illinois, 
a  gentle  stream  about  as  large  as  the  Connecticut,  with  waters 
like  the  Ohio,  somewhat  turbid.  The  Mississippi  has  gener- 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  13 

ally  on  one  side  a  steep  bank  of  soft  earth  ten  or  twelve  feet 
in  height  which  the  current  is  continually  wearing  away,  and 
which  is  constantly  dropping  in  fragments  into  the  water, 
while  on  the  other  side  it  has  a  sandy  beach.  But  the  Illi- 
nois has  most  commonly  a  shore  which  presents  no  appear- 
ance of  being  eaten  by  the  current,  but  which  slopes  as  regu- 
larly to  the  water  as  if  it  had  been  smoothed  by  the  spade. 
As  we  proceeded  up  the  river,  bluffs  began  to  make  their  ap- 
pearance on  the  west  side.  They  consisted  of  steep  walls  of 
rock,  the  tops  of  which  were  crowned  with  a  succession  of  lit- 
tle round  eminences  covered  with  coarse  grass  and  thinly  scat- 
tered trees,  having  quite  a  pastoral  aspect,  though  the  coun- 
try does  not  appear  to  be  inhabited.  We  stopped  to  take  in 
wood  on  the  west  shore,  and  I  proceeded  a  few  rods  through 
the  forest  to  take  my  first  look  at  a  natural  prairie.  It  was 
one  of  the  wet  or  alluvial  prairies.  The  soil  was  black,  and 
rather  moist  and  soft,  and  as  level  as  if  the  surface  had  been 
adjusted  by  some  instrument  of  art.  To  the  north  and  south 
along  the  river  it  stretches  to  an  extent  of  which  I  can  not 
judge,  but  to  the  east  it  was  bounded  at  the  distance  of  about 
five  miles  by  a  chain  of  rounded  eminences,  their  sides  princi- 
pally covered  with  grass  and  their  summits  with  wood,  form- 
ing the  commencement  of  the  uplands  on  which  the  dry  prai- 
ries are  situated.  The  prairie  itself  was  covered  with  coarse, 
rank  grass  four  or  five  feet  in  height,  intermingled  with  a  few 
flowers.  Here  and  there  stood  a  tall  and  lonely  tree  in  the 
midst  of  a  wilderness  of  verdure. 

We  arrived  at  Jacksonville  about  eleven  o'clock.  I  supped 
at  the  tavern  at  a  long  table  covered  with  loads  of  meat,  and 
standing  in  a  room  in  which  was  a  bed.  I  was  afterward  shown 
into  an  upper  apartment  in  which  were  seven  huge  double 
beds,  some  holding  two  brawny,  hard-breathing  fellows,  and 
some  only  one.  I  had  a  bed  to  myself,  in  which  I  contrived 
to  pass  the  time  until  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  I  got 
up,  and,  having  nothing  else  to  do,  took  a  look  at  Jacksonville. 
It  is  a  horribly  ugly  village,  composed  of  little  shops  and 


I4  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

dwellings,  stuck  close  together  around  a  dirty  square,  in  the 
middle  of  which  stands  the  ugliest  of  possible  brick  court- 
houses, with  a  spire  and  weather-cock  on  its  top.  The  sur- 
rounding country  is  a  bare,  green  plain,  with  gentle  undula- 
tions of  surface,  unenlivened  by  a  single  tree  save  what  you 
see  at  a  distance  in  the  edge  of  the  prairie,  in  the  centre  of 
which  the  village  stands.  This  plain  is  partly  enclosed  and 
cultivated,  and  partly  open  and  grazed  by  herds  of  cattle  and 
horses.  The  vegetation  of  the  unenclosed  parts  has  a  kind  of 
wild  aspect,  being  composed  of  the  original  prairie  plants, 
which  are  of  strong  and  rank  growth,  and  some  of  which  pro- 
•  duce  gaudy  flowers.  This  is  not,  however,  the  flowering 
season.  About  a  fortnight  since  they  were  red  with  the  blos- 
soms of  the  violet,  wood-sorrel,  and  the  phlox  (Divaricata  lych- 
%  nidid)  of  our  gardens.  They  will  soon  be  yellow  with  synge- 
nesious  plants. 

JUNE  12:1  have  been  to  look  at  my  brother's  farm.  There 
is  a  log-cabin  on  it,  built  by  a  squatter,  an  ingenious  fellow, 
I  warrant  him,  and  built  without  a  single  board  or  sawed 
material  of  any  sort.  The  floors  and  doors  are  made  of  split 
oak,  and  the  bedstead,  which  still  remains,  is  composed  of 
sticks  framed  into  the  wall  in  one  corner  of  the  room  and 
bottomed  with  split  oak,  the  pieces  being  about  the  size  of 
staves.  The  chimney  is  built  of  sticks,  plastered  with  mud 
inside.  There  are  two  apartments,  the  kitchen  and  the  parlor, 
although  most  of  the  houses  have  but  one  room.  The  kitchen 
is  without  any  floor  but  the  bare  ground,  and  between  that 
and  the  parlor  there  is  a  passage  on  the  ground,  roofed  over 
but  open  on  the  sides,  large  enough  to  drive  a  wagon  through. 

JUNE  1 3th  :  To-day  I  am  to  set  out  with  brother  John  on 
horseback  on  a  tour  up  the  Illinois.  I  carry  my  "  plunder  " 
in  a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  with  an  umbrella  lashed  to  the  crup- 
per, and  for  my  fare  on  the  road  I  shall  take  what  Providence 
pleases  to  send.  I  have  told  you  little  about  the  natural  pro- 
ductions of  the  soil  and  other  peculiarities  of  the  country. 
The  forests  are  of  a  very  large  growth,  and  contain  a  greater  va- 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  15 

riety  of  trees  than  are  common  to  the  eastward.  The  soil  of 
the  open  country  is  fat  and  fertile,  and  the  growth  of  all  the 
vegetable  tribes  is  rapid  and  strong  to  a  degree  unknown  in 
your  country.  There  is  not  a  stone,  a  pebble,  or  bit  of  gravel 
in  all  these  prairies.  A  plough  lasts  a  man  his  lifetime,  a  hoe 
never  wears  out,  and  the  horses  go  unshod.  Wild  plums  grow 
in  large  thickets,  loaded  with  a  profusion  of  fruit  said  to  be  of 
excellent  flavor.  The  earth  in  the  woods  is  covered  with 
May-apples  not  yet  ripe,  and  in  the  enclosed  prairies  with  large, 
fine  strawberries,  now  in  their  perfection.  Wild  gooseberries 
with  smooth  fruit  are  produced  in  abundance.  The  prairie 
and  the  forest  have  each  a  different  set  of  animals.  The 
prairie-hen,  as  you  walk  out,  starts  up  and  whirs  away  from 
under  you,  but  the  spotted  prairie-squirrel  hurries" through  the 
grass,  and  the  prairie-hawk  balances  himself  in  the  air  for  a  long 
time  over  the  same  spot.  While  observing  him  we  heard  a 
kind  of  humming  noise  in  the  grass,  which  one  of  the  company 
said  proceeded  from  a  rattlesnake.  We  dismounted,  and  found, 
in  fact,  that  it  was  made  by  a  prairie-rattlesnake,  which  lay 
coiled  around  a  tuft  of  herbage,  and  which  we  soon  despatched. 
The  Indians  call  this  small  variety  of  the  rattlesnake  the 
Massasauger.  Horses  are  frequently  bitten  by  it,  and  come 
to  the  doors  of  their  owners  with  their  heads  horribly  swollen, 
but  they  are  recovered  by  the  application  of  hartshorn.  A 
little  farther  on  one  of  the  party  raised  the  cry  of  wolf,  and, 
looking,  we  saw  a  prairie-wolf  in  the  path  before  us,  a  prick- 
eared  animal  of  a  reddish-gray  color,  standing  and  gazing  at 
us  with  great  composure.  As  we  approached,  he  trotted  off 
into  the  grass,  with  his  nose  near  the  ground,  not  deigning  to 
hasten  his  pace  for  our  shouts,  and  shortly  afterward  we  S4aw 
two  others  running  in  a  different  direction.  The  prairie-wolf 
is  not  so  formidable  an  animal  as  the  name  of  wolf  would  seem 
to  denote ;  he  is  quite  as  great  a  coward  as  robber,  but  he  is 
exceedingly  mischievous.  He  never  takes  full-grown  sheep 
unless  he  goes  with  a  strong  troop  of  his  friends,  but  seizes 
young  lambs,  carries  off  sucking-pigs,  robs  the  hen-roost,  de- 


X6  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

vours  sweet  corn  in  the  gardens,  and  plunders  the  watermelon 
patch.  A  heard  of  prairie-wolves  will  enter  a  field  of  melons 
and  quarrel  about  the  division  of  the  spoils  as  fiercely  and 
noisily  as  so  many  politicians.  It  is  their  way  to  gnaw  a  hole 
immediately  into  the  first  melon  they  lay  hold  of.  If  it  hap- 
pens to  be  ripe,  the  inside  is  devoured  at  once ;  if  not,  it  is 
dropped  and  another  is  sought  out,  and  a  quarrel  is  picked 
with  the  discoverer  of  a  ripe  one,  and  loud  and  shrill  is  the 
barking,  and  fierce  the  growling  and  snapping  which  is  heard 
on  these  occasions.  It  is  surprising,  I  am  told,  with  what 
dexterity  a  wolf  will  make  the  most  of  a  melon,  absorbing 
every  remnant  of  the  pulp,  and  hollowing  it  out  as  clean  as  it 
could  be  scraped  with  a  spoon.  This  is  when  the  allowance 
of  melons  is  scarce,  but  when  they  are  abundant  he  is  as  care- 
less and  wasteful  as  a  government  agent. 

I  believe  this  to  be  the  most  salubrious,  and  I  am  sure  it  is 
the  most  fertile,  country  I  ever  saw ;  at  the  same  time  I  do 
not  think  it  beautiful.  Some  of  the  views,  however,  from  the 
highest  parts  of  the  prairies  are  what,  I  have  no  doubt,  some 
would  call  beautiful  in  the  highest  degree,  the  green  heights 
and  hollows  and  plains  blend  so  softly  and  gently  with  one 
another. 

JACKSONVILLE,  JUNE  iQth :  I  set  out,  as  I  wrote  you  I  should 
do,  from  this  place  on  Wednesday,  the  I3th  of  this  month,  on  a 
little  excursion  toward  the  north.  John  accompanied  me. 
The  first  day  brought  us  to  Springfield,  the  capital  of  Sanga- 
mon  County,  where  the  land  office  for  this  district  is  kept,  and 
where  I  was  desirous  of  making  some  inquiries  as  to  the  land 
in  market.  Springfield  is  thirty-five  miles  east  of  Jacksonville, 
situated  just  on  the  edge  of  a  large  prairie,  on  ground  some- 
what more  uneven  than  Jacksonville,  but  the  houses  are  not 
so  good,  a  considerable  proportion  of  them  being  log-cabins, 
and  the  whole  town  having  an  appearance  of  dirt  and  discom- 
fort. The  night  we  spent  at  a  filthy  tavern,  and  the  next 
morning  resumed  our  journey,  turning  toward  the  north. 
The  general  aspect  of  Sangamon  County  is  like  that  of  Morgan, 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  1 7 

except  that  the  prairies  are  more  extensive  and  more  level. 
We  passed  over  large  tracts  covered  with  hazel  bushes,  among 
which  grew  the  red  lily  and  the  painted  cup,  a  large  scarlet 
flower.  We  then  crossed  a  region  thickly  scattered  with  large 
trees,  principally  of  black  or  white  oak,  at  the  extremity  of 
which  we  descended  to  the  bottom-lands  of  the  Sangamon, 
covered  with  tall,  coarse  grass.  About  seven  miles  north  of 
Springfield  we  forded  the  Sangamon,  which  rolls  its  transpar- 
ent waters  through  a  colonnade  of  huge  button-wood  trees 
and  black  maples,  a  variety  of  the  sugar-maple.  The  immedi- 
ate edge  of  the  river  was  muddy,  but  the  bottom  was  of  solid 
rock,  and  the  water  was  up  to  our  saddle-skirts.  We  then 
mounted  to  the  upland  by  a  ravine,  and,  proceeding  through 
another  tract  of  scattered  oaks,  came  out  again  on  the  open 
prairie.  Having  crossed  a  prairie  of  seven  or  eight  miles  in 
width,  we  came  to  a  little  patch  of  strawberries  in  the  grass  a 
little  way  from  the  edge  of  the  woodland,  where  we  alighted 
to  gather  them.  My  horse,  in  attempting  to  graze,  twitched 
the  bridle  out  of  my  hand,  and,  accidentally  setting  his  foot  on 
the  rein,  became  very  much  frightened.  I  endeavored  to  catch 
him,  but  could  not.  He  reared  and  plunged,  shook  off  the 
saddle-bags  which  contained  my  clothing  and  some  other  arti- 
cles, kicked  the  bags  to  pieces,  and,  getting  into  the  wood  by 
which  we  came,  galloped  furiously  out  of  sight  toward  Spring- 
field. I  now  thought  my  expedition  at  an  end,  and  had  the 
comfortable  prospect  of  returning  on  foot  or  of  adopting  the 
method  called  "  to  ride  and  tie."  I  picked  up  the  saddle-bags 
and  their  contents,  and,  giving  them  to  John,  I  took  charge 
of  the  umbrellas,  which  had  also  fallen  off,  and  walked  back  for 
two  miles  under  a  hot  sun,  when  I  was  met  by  a  man  riding  a 
horse,  which  I  was  very  glad  to  discover  was  the  one  that 
had  escaped.  A  foot-passenger,  who  was  coming  on  from 
Springfield,  had  stopped  him  after  he  had  galloped  about  four 
miles,  and  had  taken  advantage  of  the  circumstance  to  treat 
himself  to  a  ride.  I  then  went  back  to  the  strawberries  and 
finished  them. 


IS  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

As  it  was  now  three  o'clock,  we  went  to  a  neighboring 
house  to  get  something  to  eat  for  ourselves  and  our  horses. 
An  old  scarlet-faced  Virginian  gave  our  horses  some  corn,  and 
his  tall,  prim-looking  wife  set  a  table  for  us  with  a  rasher  of 
bacon,  a  radish,  bread  and  milk  in  pewter  tumblers.  They 
were  Methodists,  and  appeared  to  live  in  a  comfortable  way, 
there  being  two  rooms  in  their  house,  and  in  one  of  them  only 
one  bed.  A  little  farther  on  we  forded  Salt  Creek,  a  beautiful 
stream,  perfectly  clear,  and  flowing  over  pebbles  and  gravel — a 
rare  sight  in  this  country.  A  small  prairie  intervenes  between 
this  and  Sugar  Creek,  which  we  also  forded,  but  with  better 
success  than  two  travellers  who  came  after  us,  who,  attempt- 
ing to  cross  it  in  another  place,  were  obliged  to  swim  their 
horses,  and  one  of  them  was  thrown  into  the  water.  At  even- 
ing we  stopped  at  a  log-cabin  on  the  edge  of  a  prairie,  the 
width  of  which  we  were  told  was  fifteen  miles,  and  on  which 
there  was  not  a  house.  The  man  had  nothing  for  our  horses 
but  "a  smart  chance  of  pasture,"  as  he  called  it,  in  a  little  spot 
of  ground  enclosed  from  the  prairie,  and  which  appeared, 
when  we  saw  it  the  next  morning,  to  be  closely  grazed  to  the 
very  roots  of  the  herbage.  The  dwelling  was  of  the  most 
wretched  description.  It  consisted  of  but  one  room,  about 
half  of  which  was  taken  up  with  beds  and  cribs,  on  one  of 
which  lay  a  man  sick  with  a  fever,  and  on  another  sprawled 
two  or  three  children,  besides  several  who  were  asleep  on  the 
floor,  and  all  of  whom  were  brown  with  dirt.  In  a  cavernous 
fireplace  blazed  a  huge  fire,  built  against  an  enormous  back- 
log reduced  to  a  glowing  coal,  and  before  it  the  hostess  and 
her  daughter  were  busy  cooking  a  supper  for  several  travel- 
lers, who  were  sitting  under  a  kind  of  piazza  or  standing 
about  in  the  yard.  As  it  was  a  great  deal  too  hot  in  the 
house,  and  a  little  too  cool  and  damp  in  the  night  air,  we 
endeavored  to  make  the  balance  even  by  warming  ourselves 
in  the  house  and  cooling  ourselves  out  of  doors  alternately. 
About  ten  o'clock  the  sweaty  hostess  gave  us  our  supper,  con- 
sisting of  warm  cakes,  bacon,  coffee,  and  lettuce,  with  bacon- 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  19 

grease  poured  over  it.  About  eleven,  preparations  were 
made  for  repose;  the  dirty  children  were  picked  up  from 
the  floor,  and  a  feather  bed  was  pulled  out  of  a  corner  and 
spread  before  the  great  fire  for  John  and  myself,  but  on  our 
intimating  that  we  did  not  sleep  on  feathers,  we  had  a  place 
assigned  to  us  near  the  door,  where  we  stretched  ourselves  on 
our  saddle-blankets  for  the  night.  The  rest  of  the  floor  was 
taken  up  by  the  other  travellers,  with  the  exception  of  a  small 
passage  left  for  the  sick  man  to  get  to  the  door.  The  floor  of 
the  piazza  was  also  occupied  with  men  wrapped  in  their 
blankets.  The  heat  of  the  fire,  the  stifling  atmosphere,  the 
groans  and  tossings  of  the  sick  man,  who  got  up  once  in 
fifteen  minutes  to  take  medicine  or  go  to  the  door,  the  whim- 
perings of  the  children,  and  the  offensive  odors  of  the  place, 
prevented  us  from  sleeping,  and  by  four  o'clock  the  next 
morning  we  had  caught  and  saddled  our  horses  and  were 
on  our  journey. 

We  crossed  the  fifteen-mile  prairie,  and  nearly  three  miles 
beyond  came  to  the  Mackinaw,  a  fine,  clear  stream  (watering 
Tazewell  County),  which  we  forded,  and  about  half  a  mile  be- 
yond came  to  a  house  where  live  a  Quaker  family  of  the  name 
of  Wilson.  Here  we  got  a  nice  breakfast,  which  we  enjoyed 
with  great  relish,  and  some  corn  for  our  horses. 

Seven  or  eight  miles  farther  brought  us  to  Pleasant  Grove, 
a  fine  tract  of  country,  and  ten  miles  from  Wilson's  we  came 
to  a  Mr.  ShurtlifFs,  where  we  had  been  advised  to  stop  for  the 
purpose  of  making  some  inquiries  about  the  country.  Shurt- 
liff  lives  near  the  north  end  of  Pleasant  Grove,  and  within  four 
miles  of  the  northern  limit  of  the  lands  in  market.  The  soil  is 
fertile  and  well  watered,  the  streams  being  rather  more  rapid 
than  in  Jacksonville,  and  the  region  more  than  usually  healthy. 
It  is  within  eight  miles  of  Pekin,  on  the  Illinois  River,  so  that 
it  is  within  convenient  distance  of  a  market ;  there  is  plenty  of 
stone  within  a  few  miles,  and  saw-mills  have  been  erected  on 
some  of  the  streams.  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  purchase  a 
quarter-section  in  this  place.  We  were  now  within  two  days' 


20  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

ride  of  Dixon's,  where  the  American  army  is  to  be  stationed ; 
but,  being  already  much  fatigued  with  our  journey,  the  weather 
being  hot,  and  our  horses,  though  young  and  strong,  so  very 
lazy  and  obstinate  as  to  give  us  constant  employment  in  whip- 
ping them  to  keep  them  on  a  gentle  trot  on  the  smoothest 
road,  we  concluded  to  proceed  no  farther.  The  next  morn- 
ing, therefore,  we  set  out  on  our  return.  I  should  have  men- 
tioned that  every  few  miles  on  our  way  we  fell  in  with  bod- 
ies of  Illinois  militia  proceeding  to  the  American  camp,  or 
saw  where  they  had  encamped  for  the  night.  They  generally 
stationed  themselves  near  a  stream  or  a  spring  on  the  edge  of 
a  wood,  and  turned  their  horses  to  graze  on  the  prairie.  Their 
way  was  marked  by  trees  barked  or  girdled,  and  the  road 
through  the  uninhabited  country  was  as  much  beaten  and  as 
dusty  as  the  highways  on  New  York  Island.  Some  of  the 
settlers  complained  that  they  made  war  upon  the  pigs  and 
chickens.  They  were  a  hard-looking  set  of  men,  unkempt 
and  unshaved,  wearing  shirts  of  dark  calico,  and  sometimes 
calico  capotes.* 

In  returning,  we  crossed  the  large  prairie,  already  men- 
tioned, by  a  newer  way  and  more  direct  road  to  Jackson- 
ville. In  this  direction  the  prairie  was  at  least  twenty-five 
miles  across.  In  all  this  distance  we  found  but  one  inhabited 
house,  and  one  place,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  it,  at 
which  to  water  our  horses.  This  house  was  stationed  on  the 
edge  of  a  small  wood  on  an  eminence  in  the  midst  of  the 
prairie.  An  old  woman  was  spinning  at  the  door,  and  a  young 
woman  and  boy  had  just  left,  with  some  fire,  to  do  the  fam- 
ily washing  at  the  watering-place  I  have  just  mentioned.  Two 
or  three  miles  farther  on  we  came  to  another  house  on  the 
edge  of  another  grove,  which  appeared  to  have  been  built 
about  two  years,  and  which,  with  the  surrounding  enclosures, 
had  been  abandoned,  as  I  afterward  learned,  on  account  of 

*  One  of  these  militia  companies  had  for  its  captain  a  raw  youth,  in  whose  quaint 
and  pleasant  talk  Mr.  Bryant  was  much  interested.  He  learned  some  years  after- 
ward that  the  name  of  the  youth  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 


ILLINOIS  FIFTY   YEARS  AGO.  21 

sickness  and  the  want  of  water.  We  frequently  passed  the 
holes  of  the  prairie-wolf,  but  saw  none  of  the  animals.  The 
green-headed  prairie -fly  came  around  our  horses  whenever 
we  passed  a  marshy  spot  of  ground,  and  fastened  upon  them 
with  the  greediness  of  wolves,  almost  maddening  them.  A 
little  before  sunset  we  came  to  a  wood  of  thinly  scattered 
oaks,  which  marks  the  approach  to  a  river  in  this  country,  and, 
descending  a  steep  bluff,  came  to  the  moist  and  rich  bottom- 
lands of  the  Sangamon.  Next  we  passed  through  a  thick  wood 
of  gigantic  old  elms,  sycamores,  mulberries,  etc.,  and  crossed 
the  Sangamon  in  a  ferry-boat.  We  had  our  horses  refreshed 
at  the  ferry-house,  and,  proceeding  three  miles  farther,  roused 
up  a  Kentuckian  of  the  name  of  Armstrong,  who  we  un- 
derstood had  some  corn.  The  man  and  his  wife  made  no 
scruple  in  getting  up  to  accommodate  us.  Every  house  on  a 
great  road  in  this  country  is  a  public  house,  and  nobody  hesi- 
tates to  entertain  the  traveller  or  accept  his  money.  The 
woman,  who  said  she  was  Dutch  (High  Dutch,  probably), 
bestirred  herself  to  get  our  supper.  We  told  her  we  wanted 
nothing  but  bread  and  milk,  on  which  she  lamented  that  she 
had  neither  buttermilk  nor  sour  milk  ;  but  was  answered  that 
we  were  Yankees,  and  liked  sweet  milk  best.  She  baked 
some  cakes  of  corn-bread  and  set  them  before  us,  with  a 
pitcher  of  milk  and  two  tumblers.  In  answer  to  John,  who 
said  something  of  the  custom  of  the  Yankees  to  eat  the  bread 
cut  into  the  milk,  she  said  that  she  could  give  us  spoons  if  we 
were  in  yearnest ;  but  we  answered  they  were  quite  unneces- 
sary. On  my  saying  that  I  had  lived  among  the  Dutch  in 
New  York  and  elsewhere,  she  remarked  that  she  reckoned 
that  was  the  reason  why  I  did  not  talk  like  a  Yankee.  I  re- 
plied that  no  doubt  living  among  the  Dutch  had  improved 
my  English.  We  were  early  on  the  way  next  morning,  and 
about  ten  o'clock  came  to  Cox's  Grove,  a  place  about  twenty- 
five  miles  from  Jacksonville.  In  looking  for  a  place  to  feed 
our  horses,  I  asked  for  corn  at  the  cabin  of  an  old  settler 
named  Wilson,  when  I  saw  a  fat,  dusky-looking  woman,  bare- 


22  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

foot,  with  six  children  as  dirty  as  pigs  and  shaggy  as  bears. 
She  was  cleansing  one  of  them  and  cracking  certain  unfortu- 
nate insects  between  her  thumb-nails.  I  was  very  glad  when 
she  told  me  she  had  no  corn  nor  oats.  At  the  next  house  we 
found  corn,  and,  seeing  a  little  boy  of  two  years  old  running 
about  with  a  clean  face,  I  told  John  that  we  should  get  a 
clean  breakfast.  I  was  right.  The  young  man,  whose  name 
was  Short,  had  a  tall  young  wife  in  a  clean  cotton  gown,  and 
shoes  and  stockings.  She  baked  us  some  cakes,  fried  some 
bacon,  and  made  a  cup  of  coffee,  which,  being  put  on  a  clean 
table-cloth,  and  recommended  by  a  good  appetite,  was  swal- 
lowed with  some  eagerness.  Yet  the  poor  woman  had  no  tea- 
spoons in  the  house,  and  but  one  spoon  for  every  purpose,  and 
this  was  pewter  and  had  but  half  the  handle.  With  this  im 
plement  she  dipped  up  the  brown  sugar  and  stirred  it  in  our 
cups  before  handing  them  to  us.  Short  was  also  from  Ken- 
tucky, or  Kaintucky,  as  they  call  it,  as  indeed  was  every  man 
whom  I  saw  on  my  journey,  except  the  Virginian,  the  Quaker 
family,  who  were  from  Pennsylvania,  and  Shurtliff,  who  is 
from  Massachusetts,  but  who  has  a  Kentucky  wife.  I  for- 
got to  tell  you  that  at  Armstrong's  we  were  accommodated 
for  the  night  after  the  Kentucky  fashion — with  a  sheet  under 
x  our  persons  and  a  blanket  of  cotton  and  wool  over  them. 
About  nine  in  the  evening  we  reached  Wiswall's,  very  glad  to 
repose  from  a  journey  which  had  been  performed  in  exceed- 
ingly hot  weather,  on  horses  which  required  constant  flog- 
ging to  keep  them  awake,  and  during  which  we  had  not  slept 
at  the  rate  of  more  than  three  hours  a  night.  What  I  have 
thought  and  felt  amid  these  boundless  wastes  and  awful  soli- 
tudes I  shall  reserve  for  the  only  form  of  expression  in  which 
it  can  be  properly  uttered.* 

*  See  "  The  Prairies,"  Poetical  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  228. 


A  TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA,  MARCH  2,  1843 :  I  arrived  at  this 
place  last  night  from  Washington,  where  I  had  observed  little 
worth  describing.  The  statue  of  our  first  President,  by 
Greenough,  was,  of  course,  one  of  the  things  which  I  took  an 
early  opportunity  of  looking  at,  and,  although  the  bad  light  in 
which  it  is  placed  prevents  the  spectator  from  properly  ap- 
preciating the  features,  I  could  not  help  seeing  with  satisfac- 
tion that  no  position,  however  unfavorable,  could  impair  the 
majesty  of  that  noble  work,  or,  at  all  events,  destroy  its  grand 
general  effect. 

As  we  proceeded  southward  in  Virginia,  the  snow  grad- 
ually became  thinner  and  finally  disappeared  altogether.  It 
was  impossible  to  mistake  the  region  in  which  we  were. 
Broad  inclosures  were  around  us,  with  signs  of  extensive 
and  superficial  cultivation ;  large  dwellings  were  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance from  each  other,  and  each,  with  its  group  of  smaller 
buildings,  looking  as  solitary  and  chilly  as  French  chateaus ; 
and  now  and  then  we  saw  a  gang  of  negroes  at  work  in  the 
fields,  though  oftener  we  passed  miles  without  the  sight  of  a 
living  creature.  At  six  in  the  afternoon  we  arrived  at  Rich- 
mond. A  beautiful  city  is  Richmond,  seated  on  the  hills  that 
overlook  the  James  River.  The  dwellings  have  a  pleasant  ap- 
pearance, often  standing  by  themselves  in  the  midst  of  gardens. 
In  front  of  several  I  saw  large  magnolias,  their  dark,  glazed 
leaves  glittering  in  the  March  sunshine.  The  river,  as  yellow 


24  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

as  the  Tiber,  its  waters  now  stained  with  the  earth  of  the 
upper  country,  runs  by  the  upper  part  of  the  town  in  noisy 
rapids,  embracing  several  islands,  shaded  with  the  plane-tree, 
the  hackberry,  and  the  elm,  and  prolific,  in  spring  and  sum- 
mer, of  wild-flowers.  I  went  upon  one  of  these  islands,  by 
means  of  a  foot-bridge,  and  was  pointed  to  another,  the  resort 
of  a  quoit-club  comprising  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
men  of  Richmond,  among  whom  in  his  lifetime  was  Judge 
Marshall,  who  sometimes  joined  in  this  athletic  sport.  We 
descended  one  of  the  hills  on  which  the  town  is  built,  and 
went  up  another  to  the  east,  where  stands  an  ancient  house  of 
religious  worship,  the  oldest  Episcopal  Church  in  the  State.  It 
is  in  the  midst  of  a  burying-ground,  where  sleep  some  of  the 
founders  of  the  colony,  whose  old  graves  are  greenly  over- 
grown with  the  trailing  and  matted  periwinkle.  In  this 
church  Patrick  Henry,  at  the  commencement  of  the  American 
Revolution,  made  that  celebrated  speech  which  so  vehemently 
moved  all  who  heard  him,  ending  with  the  sentence :  "  Give 
me  liberty  or  give  me  death."  We  looked  in  at  one  of  the 
windows ;  it  is  a  low,  plain  room,  with  small,  square  pews,  and 
a  sounding-board  over  the  little  pulpit.  From  the  hill  on 
which  this  church  stands  you  have  a  beautiful  view  of  the 
surrounding  country,  a  gently  undulating  surface,  closed  in 
by  hills  on  the  west ;  and  the  James  River  is  seen  wandering 
through  it,  by  distant  plantations,  and  between  borders  of 
trees.  A  place  was  pointed  out  to  us,  a  little  way  down  the 
river,  which  bears  the  name  of  Powhatan ;  and  here,  I  was 
told,  a  flat  rock  is  still  shown  as  the  one  on  which  Captain 
Smith  was  placed  by  his  captors,  in  order  to  be  put  to  death, 
when  the  intercession  of  Pocahontas  saved  his  life. 

I  went  with  an  acquaintance  to  see  the  inspection  and 
sale  of  tobacco.  Huge,  upright  columns  of  dried  leaves, 
firmly  packed  and  of  a  greenish  hue,  stood  in  rows,  under  the 
roof  of  a  broad,  low  building,  open  on  all  sides ;  these  were 
the  hogsheads  of  tobacco,  stripped  of  the  staves.  The  inspec- 
tor, a  portly  man,  with  a  Bourbon  face,  his  white  hair  gath- 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  25 

ered  in  a  tie  behind,  went  very  quietly  and  expeditiously 
through  his  task  of  determining  the  quality,  after  which  the 
vast  bulks  were  disposed  of,  in  a  very  short  time,  with  sur- 
prisingly little  noise,  to  the  tobacco  merchants.  Tobacco  to 
the  value  of  three  millions  of  dollars  annually  is  sent  by  the 
planters  to  Richmond,  and  thence  distributed  to  different  na- 
tions, whose  merchants  frequent  this  mart.  In  the  sales  it  is 
always  sure  to  bring  cash,  which,  to  those  who  detest  the 
weed,  is  a  little  difficult  to  understand.  Afterward  I  went  to 
a  tobacco  factory,  the  sight  of  which  amused  me,  though  the 
narcotic  fumes  made  me  cough.  In  one  room  a  black  man 
was  taking  apart  the  small  bundles  of  leaves  of  which  a  hogs- 
head of  tobacco  is  composed,  and  carefully  separating  leaf 
from  leaf ;  others  were  assorting  the  leaves  according  to  the 
quality,  and  others  again  were  arranging  the  leaves  in  layers 
and  sprinkling  each  layer  with  the  extract  of  licorice.  In  an- 
other room  were  about  eighty  negroes — boys  they  are  called, 
from  the  age  of  twelve  years  up  to  manhood — who  received 
the  leaves  thus  prepared,  rolled  them  into  long,  even  rolls,  and 
then  cut  them  into  plugs  of  about  four  inches  in  length,  which 
were  afterward  passed  through  a  press,  and  thus  became  ready 
for  market.  As  we  entered  the  room  we  heard  a  murmur  of 
psalmody  running  through  the  sable  assembly,  which  now  and 
then  swelled  into  a  strain  of  very  tolerable  music. 

"  Verse  sweetens  toil," 

says  the  stanza  which  Dr.  Johnson  was  so  fond  of  quoting, 
and  really  it  is  so  good  that  I  will  transcribe  the  whole  of  it : 

"  Verse  sweetens  toil,  however  rude  the  sound — 

All  at  her  work  the  village  maiden  sings, 

Nor,  while  she  turns  the  giddy  wheel  around, 

Revolves  the  sad  vicissitudes  of  things." 

Verse,  it  seems,  can  sweeten  the  toil  of  slaves  in  a  tobacco 
factory.  "  We  encourage  their  singing  as  much  as  we  can," 
said  the  brother  of  the  proprietor,  himself  a  diligent  mastica- 


26  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

tor  of  the  weed,  who  attended  us,  and  politely  explained  to  us 
the  process  of  making  plug  tobacco ;  "  we  encourage  it  as 
much  as  we  can,  for  the  boys  work  better  while  singing. 
Sometimes  they  will  sing  all  day  long  with  great  spirit ;  at 
other  times  you  will  not  hear  a  single  note.  They  must  sing 
wholly  of  their  own  accord ;  it  is  of  no  use  to  bid  them  do  it." 
"  What  is  remarkable,"  he  continued,  "  their  tunes  are  all 
psalm-tunes,  and  the  words  are  from  hymn-books ;  their  taste 
is  exclusively  for  sacred  music ;  they  will  sing  nothing  else. 
Almost  all  these  persons  are  church-members ;  we  have  not 
a  dozen  about  the  factory  who  are  not  so.  Most  of  them  are 
of  the  Baptist  persuasion ;  a  few  are  Methodists."  I  saw  in 
the  course  of  the  day  the  Baptist  Church  in  which  these  peo- 
ple worship,  a  low,  plain,  but  spacious  brick  building,  the 
same  in  which  the  sages  of  Virginia,  a  generation  of  great 
men,  debated  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution.  It  has  a 
congregation  of  twenty-seven  hundred  persons,  and  the  best 
choir,  I  heard  somebody  say,  in  all  Richmond.  Near  it  is  the 
Monumental  Church,  erected  on  the  site  of  the  Richmond 
Theatre  after  the  terrible  fire  which  carried  mourning  into  so 
many  families. 

In  passing  through  an  old  part  of  Main  Street,  I  was  shown 
an  ancient  stone  cottage  of  rude  architecture  and  humble 
dimensions,  which  was  once  the  best  hotel  in  Richmond. 
Here,  I  was  told,  there  are  those  in  Richmond  who  remember 
dining  with  General  Washington,  Judge  Marshall,  and  their 
contemporaries.  I  could  not  help  comparing  it  with  the 
palace-like  building  put  up  at  Richmond  within  two  or  three 
years  past,  named  the  Exchange  Hotel,  with  its  spacious 
parlors,  its  long  dining-rooms,  its  airy  dormitories,  and  its 
ample  halls  and  passages,  echoing  to  the  steps  of  busy  waiters, 
and  guests  coming  and  departing.  I  paid  a  visit  to  the  capi- 
tol,  nobly  situated  on  an  eminence  which  overlooks  the  city, 
and  is  planted  with  trees.  The  statue  of  Washington,  exe- 
cuted by  Houdon  for  the  State  of  Virginia,  in  1788,  is  here. 
It  is  of  the  size  of  life,  representing  General  Washington  in 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  2/ 

the  costume  of  his  day,  and  in  an  ordinary  standing  posture. 
It  gratifies  curiosity,  but  raises  no  particular  moral  emotion. 
Compared  with  the  statue  by  Greenough,  it  presents  a  good 
example  of  the  difference  between  the  work  of  a  mere  sculptor 
— skilful  indeed,  but  still  a  mere  sculptor — and  the  work  of 
a  man  of  genius. 

CHARLESTON,  MARCH  6th :  I  left  Richmond,  on  the  after- 
noon of  a  keen  March  day,  in  the  railway  train  for  Peters- 
burg, where  we  arrived  after  dark,  and,  therefore,  could  form 
no  judgment  of  the  appearance  of  the  town.  Here  we  were 
transferred  to  another  train  of  cars.  About  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning  we  reached  Blakely,  on  the  Roanoke,  where  we 
were  made  to  get  out  of  the  cars,  and  were  marched  in  long 
procession  for  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  down  to  the  river.  A 
negro  walked  before  us  to  light  our  way,  bearing  a  blazing 
pine  torch,  which  scattered  sparks  like  a  steam-engine,  and  a 
crowd  of  negroes  followed  us,  bearing  our  baggage.  We 
went  down  a  steep  path  to  the  Roanoke,  where  we  found  a 
little  old  steamboat  ready  for  us,  and  in  about  fifteen  minutes 
were  struggling  upward  against  the  muddy  and  rapid  current. 
In  little  more  than  an  hour  we  had  proceeded  two  miles  and 
a  half  up  the  river,  and  were  landed  at  a  place  called  Weldon. 
Here  we  took  the  cars  for  Wilmington,  in  North  Carolina, 
and  shabby  vehicles  they  were,  denoting  our  arrival  in  a 
milder  climate  by  being  extremely  uncomfortable  for  cold 
weather.  As  morning  dawned  we  saw  ourselves  in  the  midst 
of  the  pine  forests  of  North  Carolina.  Vast  tracts  of  level 
sand — overgrown  with  the  long-leaved  pine,  a  tall,  stately  tree, 
with  sparse  and  thick  twigs,  ending  in  long  brushes  of  leaves, 
murmuring  in  the  strong,  cold  wind — extended  everywhere 
around  us.  At  great  distances  from  each  other  we  passed 
log-houses,  and  sometimes  a  dwelling  of  more  pretensions, 
with  a  piazza,  and  here  and  there  fields  in  which  cotton  or 
maize  had  been  planted  last  year,  or  an  orchard  with  a  few 
small  mossy  trees.  The  pools  beside  the  roads  were  covered 
with  ice  just  formed,  and  the  negroes,  who  like  a  good  fire  at 

VOL.    II. — 3 


28  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

almost  any  season  of  the  year,  and  who  find  an  abundant  sup- 
ply of  the  finest  fuel  in  these  forests,  had  made  blazing  fires 
of  the  resinous  wood  of  the  pine  wherever  they  were  at 
work.  The  tracts  of  sandy  soil,  we  perceived,  were  inter- 
spersed with  marshes,  crowded  with  cypress-trees,  and  verdant 
at  their  borders  with  a  growth  of  evergreens,  such  as  the 
swamp-bay,  the  gallberry,  the  holly,  and  various  kinds  of  ever- 
green creepers,  which  are  unknown  to  our  northern  climate, 
and  which  became  more  frequent  as  we  proceeded.  We 
passed  through  extensive  forests  of  pine,  which  had  been 
boxed,  as  it  is  called,  for  the  collection  of  turpentine.  Every 
tree  had  been  scored  by  the  axe  upon  one  of  its  sides,  some  of 
them  as  high  as  the  arm  could  reach,  down  to  the  roots,  and 
the  broad  wound  was  covered  with  the  turpentine,  which 
seems  to  saturate  every  fibre  of  the  long-leaved  pine.  Some- 
times we  saw  large  flakes  or  crusts  of  the  turpentine,  of  a  light 
yellow  color,  which  had  fallen,  and  lay  beside  the  tree  on  the 
ground.  The  collection  of  turpentine  is  a  work  of  destruc- 
tion ;  it  strips  acre  after  acre  of  these  noble  trees,  and,  if  it  goes 
on,  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  long-leaved  pine  will 
become  nearly  extinct  in  this  region,  which  is  so  sterile  as 
hardly  to  be  fitted  for  producing  anything  else.  We  saw  large 
tracts  covered  with  the  standing  trunks  of  trees  already 
killed  by  it ;  and  other  tracts  beside  them  had  been  freshly 
attacked  by  the  spoiler.  I  am  told  that  the  tree  which  grows 
up  when  the  long-leaved  pine  is  destroyed  is  the  loblolly  pine, 
or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  the  short-leaved  pine,  a  tree  of 
very  inferior  quality  and  in  little  esteem. 

About  half-past  two  in  the  afternoon  we  came  to  Wil- 
mington, a  little  town  built  upon  the  white  sands  of  Cape 
Fear,  some  of  the  houses  standing  where  not  a  blade  of  grass 
or  other  plant  can  grow.  A  few  evergreen  oaks  in  places 
pleasantly  overhang  the  water.  Here  we  took  the  steamer 
for  Charleston,  and  the  next  morning,  at  eight  o'clock,  we 
found  ourselves  entering  the  harbor ;  Sullivan's  Island,  with 
Fort  Moultrie,  'breathing  recollections  of  the  Revolution,  on 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


29 


our  right ;  James  Island  on  our  left ;  in  front,  the  stately  dwell- 
ings of  the  town,  and,  on  the  land  side,  the  horizon  bounded 
all  around  by  an  apparent  belt  of  evergreens — the  live-oak, 
the  water-oak,  the  palmetto,  the  pine,  and,  planted  about  the 
dwellings,  the  magnolia  and  the  wild  orange — giving  to  the 
scene  a  summer  aspect.  The  city  of  Charleston  strikes  the 
visitor  from  the  North  most  agreeably.  He  perceives  at 
once  that  he  is  in  a  different  climate.  The  spacious  houses 
are  surrounded  with  broad  piazzas,  often  a  piazza,  to  each 
story,  for  the  sake  of  shade  and  coolness,  and  each  house 
generally  stands  by  itself  in  a  garden  planted  with  trees  and 
shrubs,  many  of  which  preserve  their  verdure  through  the 
winter.  We  saw  early  flowers  already  opening ;  the  peach- 
and  plum-tree  were  in  full  bloom ;  and  the  wild  orange,  as 
they  call  the  cherry-laurel,  was  just  putting  forth  its  blossoms. 
The  buildings — some  with  stuccoed  walls,  some  built  of  large 
dark-red  bricks,  and  some  of  wood — are  not  kept  fresh  with 
paint  like  ours,  but  are  allowed  to  become  weather-stained  by 
the  humid  climate,  like  those  of  the  European  towns.  The 
streets  are  broad  and  quiet,  unpaved  in  some  parts,  but  in 
none,  as  with  us,  offensive  both  to  sight  and  smell.  The 
public  buildings  are  numerous  for  the  size  of  the  city,  and 
well-built  in  general,  with  sufficient  space  about  them  to  give 
them  a  noble  aspect,  and  all  the  advantage  which  they  could 
derive  from  their  architecture.  The  inhabitants,  judging  from 
what  I  have  seen  of  them,  which  is  not  much,  I  confess,  do 
not  appear  undeserving  of  the  character  which  has  been  given 
them — of  possessing  the  most  polished  and  agreeable  manners 
of  all  Americans. 

BARNWELL  DISTRICT,  SOUTH  CAROLINA,  MARCH  2gth : 
Since  I  last  wrote  I  have  passed  three  weeks  in  the  interior 
of  South  Carolina ;  visited  Columbia,  the  capital  of  the  State, 
a  pretty  town  ;  roamed  over  a  considerable  part  of  Barnwell 
district,  with  some  part  of  the  neighboring  one  of  Orange- 
burg;  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  the  planters — very  agree- 
able and  intelligent  men ;  been  out  on  a  raccoon  hunt ;  been 


30  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

present  at  a  corn-shucking ;  listened  to  negro  ballads,  negro 
jokes,  and  the  banjo  ;  witnessed  negro  dances ;  seen  two  alli- 
gators at  least,  and  eaten  bushels  of  hominy. 

Whoever  comes  out  on  the  railroad  to  this  district,  a  dis- 
tance of  seventy  miles  or  more,  if  he  were  to  judge  only  by 
what  he  sees  in  his  passage,  might  naturally  take  South  Caro- 
lina for  a  vast  pine-forest,  with  here  and  there  a  clearing  made 
by  some  enterprising  settler,  and  would  wonder  where  the 
cotton  which  clothes  so  many  millions  of  the  human  race  is 
produced.  The  railway  keeps  on  a  tract  of  sterile  sand, 
overgrown  with  pines,  passing  here  and  there  along  the  edge 
of  a  morass,  or  crossing  a  stream  of  yellow  water.  A  lonely 
log-house  under  these  old  trees  is  "  a  sight  for  sore  eyes  "  ; 
and  only  two  or  three  plantations,  properly  so  called,  meet 
the  eye  in  the  whole  distance.  The  cultivated  and  more  pro- 
ductive lands  lie  apart  from  this  tract,  near  streams,  and  inter- 
spersed with  more  frequent  ponds  and  marshes.  Here  you 
find  plantations  comprising  several  thousands  of  acres,  a  con- 
siderable part  of  which  always  lies  in  forest ;  cotton-  and  corn- 
fields of  vast  extent,  and  a  negro  village  on  every  plantation, 
at  a  respectful  distance  from  the  habitation  of  the  proprietor. 
Evergreen  trees  of  the  oak  family  and  others,  which  I  men- 
tioned in  my  last  letter,  are  generally  planted  about  the  man- 
sions. Some  of  them  are  surrounded  with  dreary  clearings, 
full  of  the  standing  trunks  of  dead  pines ;  others  are  pleas- 
antly situated  on  the  edge  of  woods,  intersected  by  wind- 
ing paths.  A  ramble  or  a  ride — a  ride  at  a  hard  gallop 
it  should  be — in  these  pine  woods,  on  a  fine  March  day, 
when  the  weather  has  all  the  spirit  of  our  March  days  with- 
out its  severity,  is  one  of  the  most  delightful  recreations  in 
the  world.  The  paths  are  upon  a  white  sand,  which,  when 
not  frequently  travelled,  is  very  firm  under  foot ;  on  all  sides 
you  are  surrounded  by  noble  stems  of  trees,  towering  to 
an  immense  height,  from  whose  summits,  far  above  you, 
the  wind  is  drawing  deep  and  grand  harmonies ;  and  often 
your  way  is  beside  a  marsh,  verdant  with  magnolias,  where 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  3! 

the  yellow  jasmine,  now  in  flower,  fills  the  air  with  fra- 
grance, and  the  bamboo-brier,  an  evergreen  creeper,  twines 
itself  with  various  other  plants,  which  never  shed  their  leaves 
in  winter.  These  woods  abound  in  game,  which,  you  will 
believe  me  when  I  say,  I  had  rather  start  than  shoot :  flocks 
of  turtle-doves ;  .  rabbits  rising  and  scudding  before  you ; 
bevies  of  quails — partridges  they  call  them  here — chirping 
almost  under  your  horse's  feet ;  wild  ducks  swimming  in  the 
pools  ;  and  wild  turkeys,  which  are  frequently  shot  by  the 
practiced  sportsman. 

But  you  must  hear  of  the  corn-shucking.  The  one  at  which 
I  was  present  was  given  on  purpose  that  I  might  witness  the 
humors  of  the  Carolina  negroes.  A  huge  fire  of  light-wood 
was  made  near  the  corn-house.  Light-wood  is  the  wood  of 
the  long-leaved  pine,  and  is  so  called,  not  because  it  is  light, 
for  it  is  almost  the  heaviest  wood  in  the  world,  but  because  it 
gives  more  light  than  any  other  fuel.  In  clearing  land,  the 
pines  are  girdled  and  suffered  to  stand ;  the  outer  portion  of 
the  wood  decays  and  falls  off ;  the  inner  part,  which  is  satu- 
rated with  turpentine,  remains  upright  for  years,  and  consti- 
tutes the  planter's  provision  of  fuel.  When  a  supply  is  wanted, 
one  of  these  dead  trunks  is  felled  by  the  axe.  The  abundance 
of  light-wood  is  one  of  the  boasts  of  South  Carolina.  Wher- 
ever you  are,  if  you  happen  to  be  chilly,  you  may  have  a  fire 
extempore  ;  a  bit  of  light-wood  and  a  coal  give  you  a  bright 
blaze  and  a  strong  heat  in  an  instant.  The  negroes  make  fires 
of  it  in  the  fields  where  they  work ;  and,  when  the  mornings 
are  wet  and  chilly,  in  the  pens  where  they  are  milking  the 
cows.  At  a  plantation  where  I  passed  a  frosty  night,  I  saw 
fires  in  a  small  enclosure,  and  was  told  by  the  lady  of  the  house 
that  she  had  ordered  them  to  be  made  to  warm  the  cattle. 
The  light-wood  fire  was  made,  and  the  negroes  dropped  in 
from  the  neighboring  plantations,  singing  as  they  came.  The 
driver  of  the  plantation,  a  colored  man,  brought  out  baskets 
of  corn  in  the  husk,  and  piled  it  in  a  heap  ;  and  the  negroes 
began  to  strip  the  husks  from  the  ears,  singing  with  great 


32  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

glee  as  they  worked,  keeping  time  to  the  music,  and  now  and 
then  throwing  in  a  joke  and  an  extravagant  burst  of  laughter. 
The  songs  were  generally  of  a  comic  character ;  but  one  of 
them  was  set  to  a  singularly  wild  and  plaintive  air,  which 
some  of  our  musicians  would  do  well  to  reduce  to  notation. 
These  are  the  words  : 

"  Johnny  come  down  de  hollow. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
Johnny  come  down  de  hollow. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
De  nigger-trader  got  me. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
De  speculator  bought  me. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
I'm  sold  for  silver  dollars. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
Boys,  go  catch  de  pony. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
Bring  him  round  the  corner. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
I'm  goin'  away  to  Georgia. 

Oh  hollow  ! 
Boys,  good-by  forever  ! 

Oh  hollow !  " 

The  song  of  "  Jenny  gone  Away  "  was  also  given,  and 
another,  called  the  monkey-song,  probably  of  African  origin, 
in  which  the  principal  singer  personated  a  monkey,  with  all 
sorts  of  odd  gesticulations,  and  the  other  negroes  bore  part 
in  the  chorus,  "Dan,  Dan,  who's  de  Dandy?"  One  of  the 
songs  commonly  sung  on  these  occasions  represents  the  vari- 
ous animals  of  the  woods  as  belonging  to  some  profession  or 
trade.  For  example : 

"  De  cooler  is  de  boatman." 

The  cooter  means  the  terrapin,  and  a  very  expert  boatman 
he  is. 


A   TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  33 

"  De  cooter  is  de  boatman. 

John  John  Crow. 
De  red-bird  de  soger. 

John  John  Crow. 
De  mocking-bird  de  lawyer. 

John  John  Crow. 
De  alligator  sawyer. 

John  John  Crow." 

The  alligator's  back  is  furnished  with  a  toothed  ridge,  like 
the  edge  of  a  saw,  which  explains  the  last  line. 

When  the  work  of  the  evening  was  over,  the  negroes  ad- 
journed to  a  spacious  kitchen.  One  of  them  took  his  place  as 
musician,  whistling,  and  beating  time  with  two  sticks  upon 
the  floor.  Several  of  the  men  came  forward  and  executed 
various  dances,  capering,  prancing,  and  drumming  with  heel 
and  toe  upon  the  floor,  with  astonishing  agility  and  persever- 
ance, though  all  of  them  had  performed  their  daily  tasks  and  had 
worked  all  the  evening,  and  some  had  walked  from  four  to 
seven  miles  to  attend  the  corn-shucking.  From  the  dances  a 
transition  was  made  to  a  mock  military  parade,  a  sort  of  bur- 
lesque of  our  militia  trainings,  in  which  the  words  of  command 
and  the  evolutions  were  extremely  ludicrous.  It  became  nec- 
essary for  the  commander  to  make  a  speech,  and,  confessing 
his  incapacity  for  public  speaking,  he  called  upon  a  huge  black 
man  named  Toby  to  address  the  company  in  his  stead.  Toby, 
a  man  of  powerful  frame,  six  feet  high,  his  face  ornamented 
with  a  beard  of  fashionable  cut,  had  hitherto  stood  leaning 
against  the  wall,  looking  upon  the  frolic  with  an  air  of  superi- 
ority. He  consented,  came  forward,  demanded  a  bit  of  paper 
to  hold  in  his  hand,  and  harangued  the  soldiery.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  Toby  had  listened  to  stump  speeches  in  his  day. 
He  spoke  of  "  de  majority  of  Sous  Carolina,"  "  de  interests  of 
de  State,"  "  de  honor  of  ole  Ba'nwell  district,"  and  these 
phrases  he  connected  by  various  expletives,  and  sounds  of 
which  we  could  make  nothing.  At  length  he  began  to  falter, 
when  the  captain,  with  admirable  presence  of  mind,  came  to 


34 


SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 


his  relief,  and  interrupted  and  closed  the  harangue  with  a 
hurrah  from  the  company.  Toby  was  allowed  by  all  the 
spectators,  black  and  white,  to  have  made  an  excellent  speech. 

The  blacks  of  this  region  are  a  cheerful,  careless,  dirty  race, 
not  hard- worked,  and  in  many  respects  indulgently  treated. 
It  is,  of  course,  the  desire  of  the  master  that  his  slaves  shall 
work  hard  ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  determination  of  the  slave 
is  to  lead  as  easy  a  life  as  he  can.  The  master  has  power  of 
punishment  on  his  side ;  the  slave,  on  his,  an  invincible  indo- 
lence, and  a  thousand  expedients  learned  by  long  practice. 
The  result  is  a  compromise,  in  which  each  party  yields  some- 
thing, and  a  good-natured  though  imperfect  and  slovenly  obe- 
dience on  one  side  is  purchased  by  good  treatment  on  the 
other.  I  have  been  told  by  planters  that  the  slave  brought 
from  Africa  is  much  more  serviceable,  though  more  high-spir- 
ited and  dangerous,  than  the  slave  born  in  this  country  and 
early  trained  to  his  condition. 

PICOLATA,  EAST  FLORIDA,  APRIL  7th :  As  I  landed  at  this 
place,  a  few  hours  since,  I  stepped  into  the  midst  of  summer. 
Yesterday  morning,  when  I  left  Savannah,  people  were  com- 
plaining that  the  winter  was  not  over.  The  temperature, 
which  at  this  time  of  the  year  is  usually  warm  and  genial, 
continued  to  be  what  they  called  chilly,  though  I  found  it 
agreeable  enough,  and  the  showy  trees,  called  the  Pride  of 
India,  which  are  planted  all  over  the  city,  and  are  generally 
in  bloom  at  this  season,  were  still  leafless.  Here  I  find  every- 
thing green,  fresh,  and  fragrant,  trees  and  shrubs  in  full  foli- 
age, and  wild  roses  in  flower.  The  dark  waters  of  the  St. 
John's,  one  of  the  noblest  streams  of  the  country,  in  depth  and 
width  like  the  St.  Lawrence,  draining  almost  the  whole  ex- 
tent of  the  peninsula,  are  flowing  under  my  window.  On  the 
opposite  shore  are  forests  of  tall  trees,  bright  in  the  new  ver- 
dure of  the  season.  A  hunter  who  has  ranged  them  the  whole 
day  has  just  arrived  in  a  canoe,  bringing  with  him  a  deer 
which  he  has  killed.  I  have  this  moment  returned  from  a 
ramble  with  my  host  through  a  hammock,  he  looking  for  his 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


35 


cows,  and  I,  unsuccessfully,  for  a  thicket  of  orange-trees.  He 
is  something  of  a  florist,  and  gathered  for  me,  as  we  went, 
some  of  the  forest-plants  which  were  in  bloom.  "  We  have 
flowers  here,"  said  he,  "  every  month  in  the  year.'' 

I  have  used  the  word  hammock,  which  here,  in  Florida, 
has  a  peculiar  meaning.  A  hammock  is  a  spot  covered  with 
a  growth  of  trees  which  require  a  richer  soil  than  the  pine, 
such  as  the  oak,  the  mulberry,  the  gum-tree,  the  hickory,  etc. 
The  greater  part  of  east  Florida  consists  of  pine  barrens — a 
sandy  level,  producing  the  long-leaved  pine  and  the  dwarf 
palmetto,  a  low  plant,  with  fan-like  leaves,  and  roots  of  a  pro- 
digious size.  The  hammock  is  a  kind  of  oasis,  a  verdant  and 
luxuriant  island  in  the  midst  of  these  sterile  sands  which  make 
about  nine  tenths  of  the  soil  of  east  Florida.  In  the  ham- 
mocks grow  the  wild  lime,  the  native  orange,  both  sour  and 
bitter-sweet,  and  the  various  vines  and  gigantic  creepers  of  the 
country.  The  hammocks  are  chosen  for  plantations ;  here  the 
cane  is  cultivated,  and  groves  of  the  sweet  orange  planted. 
But  I  shall  say  more  of  Florida  hereafter,  when  I  have  seen 
more  of  it.  Meantime,  let  me  speak  of  my  journey  hither. 

I  left  Charleston  on  the  3oth  of  March,  in  one  of  the 
steamers  which  ply  between  that  city  and  Savannah.  These 
steamers  are  among  the  very  best  that  float — quiet,  commodi- 
ous, clean,  fresh  as  if  just  built,  and  furnished  with  civil  and 
ready-handed  waiters.  We  passed  along  the  narrow  and 
winding  channels  which  divide  the  broad  islands  of  South 
Carolina  from  the  mainland — islands  famed  for  the  rice  cul- 
ture, and  particularly  for  the  excellent  cotton  with  long  fibers, 
named  the  sea-island  cotton.  Our  fellow-passengers  were 
mostly  planters  of  these  islands,  and  their  families — persons  of 
remarkably  courteous,  frank,  and  agreeable  manners.  The 
shores  on  either  side  had  little  of  the  picturesque  to  show  us. 
Extensive  marshes  waving  with  coarse  water-grass,  sometimes 
a  canebrake,  sometimes  a  pine  grove  or  a  clump  of  cabbage- 
leaved  palmettoes ;  here  and  there  a  pleasant  bank  bordered 
with  live-oaks  streaming  with  moss,  and  at  wide  intervals  the 


36  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

distant  habitation  of  a  planter — these  were  the  elements  of 
the  scenery.  The  next  morning  early  we  were  passing  up 
the  Savannah  River,  and  the  city  was  in  sight,  standing  among 
its  trees  on  a  high  bank  of  the  stream. 

Savannah  is  beautifully  laid  out;  its  broad  streets  are 
thickly  planted  with  the  Pride  of  India,  and  its  frequent  open 
squares  shaded  with  trees  of  various  kinds.  Oglethorpe  seems 
to  have  understood  how  a  city  should  be  built  in  a  warm  cli- 
mate, and  the  people  of  the  place  are  fond  of  reminding  the 
stranger  that  the  original  plan  of  the  founder  has  never  been 
departed  from.  The  town,  so  charmingly  embowered,  re- 
minded me  of  New  Haven,  though  the  variety  of  trees  is 
greater.  South  of  the  town  extends  an  uninclosed  space,  near 
a  pleasant  grove  of  pines,  in  the  shade  of  which  the  members 
of  a  quoit-club  practice  their  athletic  sport.  Here  on  a  Satur- 
day afternoon — for  that  is  their  stated  time  of  assembling — I 
was  introduced  to  some  of  the  most  distinguished  citizens  of 
Savannah,  and  witnessed  the  skill  with  which  they  threw  the 
discus.  No  apprentices  were  they  in  the  art ;  there  was  no 
striking  far  from  the  stake,  no  sending  the  discus  rolling  over 
the  green ;  they  heaped  the  quoits  as  snugly  around  the  stakes 
as  if  the  amusement  had  been  their  profession.  In  the  same 
neighborhood,  just  without  the  town,  lies  the  public  cemetery, 
surrounded  by  an  ancient  wall,  built  before  the  Revolution, 
which  in  some  places  shows  the  marks  of  shot  fired  against 
it  in  the  skirmishes  of  that  period.  I  entered  it,  hoping  to 
find  some  monuments  of  those  who  founded  the  city  a  hundred 
and  ten  years  ago,  but  the  inscriptions  are  of  comparatively 
recent  date.  Most  of  them  commemorate  the  death  of  persons 
born  in  Europe  or  the  Northern  States.  I  was  told  that  the 
remains  of  the  early  inhabitants  lie  in  the  brick  tombs,  of 
which  there  are  many,  without  any  inscription  whatever. 
At  a  little  distance,  near  a  forest,  lies  the  burial-place  of  the 
black  population.  A  few  trees,  trailing  with  long  moss,  rise 
above  hundreds  of  nameless  graves,  overgrown  with  weeds ; 
but  here  and  there  are  scattered  memorials  of  the  dead,  some 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  37 

of  a  very  humble  kind,  with  a  few  of  marble,  and  half  a  dozen 
spacious  brick  tombs  like  those  in  the  cemetery  of  the  whites. 
Some  of  them  are  erected  by  masters  and  mistresses  to  the 
memory  of  favorite  slaves.  One  of  them  commemorates  the 
death  of  a  young  woman  who  perished  in  the  catastrophe  of 
the  steamer  Pulaski,  of  whom  it  is  recorded  that,  during  the 
whole  time  that  she  was  in  the  service  of  her  mistress,  which 
was  many  years,  she  never  committed  a  theft  nor  uttered  a 
falsehood.  A  brick  monument,  in  the  shape  of  a  little  tomb, 
with  a  marble  slab  inserted  in  front,  has  this  inscription : 

"  In  memory  of  Henrietta  Gatlin,  the  infant  stranger,  born  in  East 
Florida,  aged  i  year  3  months." 

A  graveyard  is  hardly  the  place  to  be  merry  in,  but  I 
could  not  help  smiling  at  some  of  the  inscriptions.  A  fair  up- 
right marble  slab  commemorates  the  death  of  York  Fleming, 
a  cooper,  who  was  killed  by  the  explosion  of  a  powder-maga- 
zine while  tightening  the  hoops  of  a  keg  of  powder.  It  closes 
with  this  curious  sentence : 

"  This  stone  was  erected  by  the  members  of  the  Axe  Company, 
Coopers  and  Committee  of  the  2nd  African  Church  of  Savannah  for 
the  purpose  of  having  a  Herse  for  benevolent  purposes,  of  which  he 
was  the  first  sexton." 

A  poor  fellow,  who  went  to  the  other  world  by  water, 
has  a  wooden  slab  to  mark  his  grave,  inscribed  with  these 
words : 

"  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Robert  Spencer  who  came  to  his  Death 
by  A  Boat,  July  pth,  1840,  aged  21  years. 

Reader  as  you  am  now  so  once  I 

And  as  I  am  now  so  Mus  you  be  Shortly. 

Amen." 

Another  monument,  after  giving  the  name  of  the  dead,  has 
this  sentence : 

"  Go  home  Mother  dry  up  your  weeping  tears.    Gods  will  be  done." 


3 8  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

Another,  erected  to  Sarah  Morel,  aged  six  months,  has  this 
ejaculation :  "  Sweet  withered  lilly  farewell." 

One  of  the  monuments  is  erected  to  Andrew  Bryan,  a 
black  preacher,  of  the  Baptist  persuasion.  A  long  inscription 
states  that  he  was  once  imprisoned  "  for  preaching  the  Gospel, 
and,  without  ceremony,  severely  whipped  "  ;  and  that,  while 
undergoing  the  punishment,  "  he  told  his  persecutors  that  he 
not  only  rejoiced  to  be  whipped,  but  was  willing  to  suffer 
death  for  the  cause  of  Christ."  He  died  in  1812,  at  the  age 
of  ninety-six ;  his  funeral,  the  inscription  takes  care  to  state, 
was  attended  by  a  large  concourse  of  people,  and  adds : 

"  An  address  was  delivered  at  his  death  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Johnson, 
Dr.  Kollock,  Thomas  Williams,  and  Henry  Cunningham." 

While  in  Savannah  I  paid  a  visit  to  Bonaventure,  formerly 
a  country-seat  of  Governor  Tatnall,  but  now  abandoned.  A 
pleasant  drive  of  a  mile  or  two,  through  a  budding  forest, 
took  us  to  the  place,  which  is  now  itself  almost  grown  up  into 
forest.  Cedar  and  other  shrubs  hide  the  old  terraces  of  the 
garden,  which  is  finely  situated  on  the  high  bank  of  a  river. 
Trees  of  various  kinds  have  also  nearly  filled  the  space  be- 
tween the  noble  avenues  of  live-oaks  which  were  planted 
around  the  mansion.  But  these  oaks — I  never  saw  finer  trees — 
certainly  I  never  saw  so  many  majestic  and  venerable  trees 
together.  I  looked  far  down  the  immense  arches  that  over- 
shadowed the  broad  passages,  as  high  as  the  nave  of  a  Gothic 
cathedral,  apparently  as  old,  and  stretching  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance. The  huge  boughs  were  clothed  with  gray  moss,  yards 
in  length,  which  clung  to  them  like  mist,  or  hung  in  still  fes- 
toons on  every  side,  and  gave  them  the  appearance  of  the 
vault  of  a  vast  vapory  cavern.  The  cawing  of  the  crow  and 
the  scream  of  the  jay,  however,  reminded  us  that  we  were  in 
the  forest.  Of  the  mansion  there  are  no  remains  ;  but  in  the 
thicket  of  magnolias  and  other  trees,  among  rose-bushes  and 
creeping  plants,  we  found  a  burial-place,  with  monuments  of 
some  persons  to  whom  the  seat  had  belonged. 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  39 

I  left,  with  a  feeling  of  regret,  the  agreeable  society  of  Sa- 
vannah. The  steamboat  took  us  to  St.  Mary's,  through  pas- 
sages between  the  sea-islands  and  the  mainland,  similar  to 
those  by  which  we  had  arrived  at  Savannah.  In  the  course 
of  the  day  we  passed  a  channel  in  which  we  saw  several  huge 
alligators  basking  on  the  bank.  The  grim  creatures  slid  slow- 
ly into  the  water  at  our  approach.  We  passed  St.  Mary's  in 
the  night,  and  in  the  morning  we  were  in  the  main  ocean, 
approaching  the  St.  John's,  where  we  saw  a  row  of  pelicans 
standing,  like  creatures  who  had  nothing  to  do,  on  the  sand. 
We  entered  the  majestic  river,  the  vast  current  of  which  is 
dark  with  the  infusion  of  the  swamp  turf  from  which  it  is 
drained.  We  passed  Jacksonville,  a  little  town  of  great  ac- 
tivity, which  has  sprung  up  on  the  sandy  bank  within  two  or 
three  years.  Beyond,  we  swept  by  the  mouth  of  the  Black 
Creek,  the  water  of  which,  probably  from  the  color  of  the 
mud  which  forms  the  bed  of  its  channel,  has  to  the  eye  an 
ebony  blackness,  and  reflects  objects  with  all  the  distinctness 
of  the  kind  of  looking-glass  called  a  black  mirror.  A  few 
hours  brought  us  to  Picolata,  lately  a  military  station,  but  now 
a  place  with  only  two  houses. 

ST.  AUGUSTINE,  EAST  FLORIDA,  APRIL  2d :  When  we  left 
Picolata,  on  the  8th  of  April,  we  found  ourselves  journeying 
through  a  vast  forest.  A  road  of  eighteen  miles  in  length, 
over  the  level  sands,  brings  you  to  this  place.  Tall  pines,  a 
thin  growth,  stood  wherever  we  turned  our  eyes,  and  the 
ground  was  covered  with  the  dwarf  palmetto,  and  the  whortle- 
berry, which  is  here  an  evergreen.  Yet  there  were  not  want- 
ing sights  to  interest  us,  even  in  this  dreary  and  sterile  region. 
As  we  passed  a  clearing,  in  which  we  saw  a  young  white 
woman  and  a  boy  dropping  corn,  and  some  negroes  covering 
it  with  their  hoes,  we  beheld  a  large  flock  of  white  cranes, 
which  rose  in  the  air  and  hovered  over  the  forest,  and 
wheeled  and  wheeled  again,  their  spotless  plumage  glisten- 
ing in  the  sun  like  new-fallen  snow.  We  crossed  the  track  of  a 
recent  hurricane,  which  had  broken  off  the  huge  pines  midway 


40  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

from  the  ground  and  whirled  the  summits  to  a  distance  from 
their  trunks.  From  time  to  time  we  forded  little  streams  of  a 
deep-red  color,  flowing  from  the  swamps,  tinged,  as  we  were 
told,  with  the  roots  of  the  red  bay,  a  species  of  magnolia.  As 
the  horses  waded  into  the  transparent  crimson,  we  thought  of 
the  butcheries  committed  by  the  Indians  on  that  road,  and 
could  almost  fancy  that  the  water  was  still  colored  with  the 
blood  they  had  shed.  The  driver  of  our  wagon  told  us  many 
narratives  of  these  murders,  and  pointed  out  the  places  where 
they  were  committed.  He  showed  us  where  the  father  of  this 
young  woman  was  shot  dead  in  his  wagon  as  he  was  going 
from  St.  Augustine  to  his  plantation,  and  the  boy  whom  he 
had  seen  was  wounded  and  scalped  by  them,  and  left  for  dead. 
In  another  place  he  showed  us  the  spot  where  a  party  of  play- 
ers, on  their  way  to  St.  Augustine,  were  surprised  and  killed. 
The  Indians  took  possession  of  the  stage-dresses,  one  of  them 
arraying  himself  in  the  garb  of  Othello,  another  in  that  of 
Richard  the  Third,  and  another  taking  the  costume  of  Falstaff. 
I  think  it  was  Wild  Cat's  gang  who  engaged  in  this  affair,  and 
I  was  told  that,  after  the  capture  of  this  chief  and  some  of  his 
warriors,  they  recounted  the  circumstances  with  great  glee. 
At  another  place  we  passed  a  small  thicket,  in  which  several 
armed  Indians,  as  they  afterward  related,  lay  concealed  while 
an  officer  of  the  United  States  army  rode  several  times  around 
it,  without  any  suspicion  of  their  presence.  The  same  men 
committed,  immediately  afterward,  several  murders  and  rob- 
beries on  the  road. 

At  length  we  emerged  upon  a  shrubby  plain,  and  soon 
came  in  sight  of  this  oldest  city  of  the  United  States,  seated 
among  its  trees  on  a  sandy  swell  of  land,  where  it  has  stood  for 
three  hundred  years.  I  was  struck  with  its  ancient  and  homely 
aspect,  even  at  a  distance,  and  could  not  help  likening  it  to 
pictures  which  I  had  seen  of  Dutch  towns,  though  it  wanted  a 
windmill  or  two  to  make  the  resemblance  perfect.  We  drove 
into  a  green  square,  in  the  midst  of  which  was  a  monument 
erected  to  commemorate  the  Spanish  constitution  of  1812,  and 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  41 

thence  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  city  to  our  hotel.  I 
have  called  the  streets  narrow.  In  few  places  are  they  wide 
enough  to  allow  two  carriages  to  pass  abreast.  I  was  told  that 
they  were  not  originally  intended  for  carriages,  and  that  in 
the  time  when  the  town  belonged  to  Spain  many  of  them 
were  floored  with  an  artificial  stone,  composed  of  shells  and 
mortar,  which  in  this  climate  takes  and  keeps  the  hardness  of 
rock,  and  that  no  other  vehicle  than  a  hand-barrow  was  al- 
lowed to  pass  over  them.  In  some  places  you  see  remnants  of 
this  ancient  pavement,  but  for  the  most  part  it  has  been  ground 
into  dust  under  the  wheels  of  the  carts  and  carriages  intro- 
duced by  the  new  inhabitants.  The  old  houses,  built  of  a  kind 
of  stone  which  is  seemingly  a  pure  concretion  of  small  shells, 
overhang  the  streets  with  their  wooden  balconies,  and  the  gar- 
dens between  the  houses  are  fenced  on  the  side  of  the  street 
with  high  walls  of  stone.  Peeping  over  these  walls  you  see 
branches  of  the  pomegranate  and  of  the  orange-tree,  now  fra- 
grant with  flowers,  and,  rising  yet  higher,  the  leaning  boughs 
of  the  fig,  with  its  broad,  luxuriant  leaves.  Occasionally  you 
pass  the  ruins  of  houses — walls  of  stone,  with  arches  and  stair- 
cases of  the  same  material,  which  once  belonged  to  stately 
dwellings.  You  meet  in  the  streets  with  men  of  swarthy  com- 
plexions and  foreign  physiognomy,  and  you  hear  them  speak- 
ing to  each  other  in  a  strange  language.  You  are  told  that 
these  are  the  remains  of  those  who  inhabited  the  country 
under  the  Spanish  dominion,  and  that  the  dialect  you  have 
heard  is  that  of  the  island  of  Minorca.  "  Twelve  years  ago," 
said  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  "  when  I  first  visited  St.  Augus- 
tine, it  was  a  fine  old  Spanish  town.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  houses,  which  you  now  see  roofed  like  barns,  were  then 
flat-roofed;  they  were  all  of  shell-rock,  and  these  modern 
wooden  buildings  were  not  yet  erected.  That  old  fort,  which 
they  are  now  repairing,  to  fit  it  for  receiving  a  garrison,  was  a 
sort  of  ruin,  for  the  outworks  had  partly  fallen,  and  it  stood 
unoccupied  by  the  military,  a  venerable  monument  of  the 
Spanish  dominion.  But  the  orange-groves  were  the  ornament 


42  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

and  wealth  of  St.  Augustine,  and  their  produce  maintained  the 
inhabitants  in  comfort.  Orange-trees,  of  the  size  and  height 
of  the  pear-tree,  often  rising  higher  than  the  roofs  of  the 
houses,  embowered  the  town  in  perpetual  verdure.  They 
stood  so  close  in  the  groves  that  they  excluded  the  sun,  and 
the  atmosphere  was  at  all  times  aromatic  with  their  leaves  and 
fruit,  and  in  spring  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers  was  almost 
oppressive."  These  groves  have  now  lost  their  beauty.  A 
few  years  since  a  severe  frost  killed  the  trees  to  the  ground, 
and,  when  they  sprouted  again  from  the  roots,  a  new  enemy 
made  its  appearance — an  insect  of  the  coccus  family,  with  a 
kind  of  shell  on  its  back,  which  enables  it  to  withstand  all  the 
common  applications  for  destroying  insects,  and  the  ravages 
of  which  are  shown  by  the  leaves  becoming  black  and  sere 
and  the  twigs  perishing.  In  October  last  a  gale  drove  in  the 
spray  from  the  ocean,  stripping  the  trees,  except  in  sheltered 
situations,  of  their  leaves,  and  destroying  the  upper  branches. 
The  trunks  are  now  putting  out  new  sprouts  and  new  leaves, 
but  there  is  no  hope  of  fruit  for  this  year  at  least. 

The  old  fort  of  St.  Mark,  now  called  Fort  Marion,  a  fool- 
ish change  of  name,  is  a  noble  work,  frowning  over  the  Matan- 
zas,  which  flows  between  St.  Augustine  and  the  island  of  St. 
Anastasia,  and  it  is  worth  making  a  long  journey  to  see.  No 
record  remains  of  its  original  construction,  but  it  is  supposed 
to  have  been  erected  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  since, 
and  the  shell-rock  of  which  it  is  built  is  dark  with  time.  We 
saw  where  it  had  been  struck  with  cannon-balls,  which,  instead 
of  splitting  the  rock,  became  imbedded  and  clogged  among 
the  loosened  fragments  of  shell.  This  rock  is,  therefore,  one 
of  the  best  materials  for  a  fortification  in  the  world.  We 
were  taken  into  the  ancient  prisons  of  the  fort — dungeons,  one 
of  which  was  dimly  lighted  by  a  grated  window,  and  another 
entirely  without  light ;  and  by  the  flame  of  a  torch  we  were 
shown  the  half-obliterated  inscriptions  scrawled  on  the  walls 
long  ago  by  prisoners.  But  in  another  corner  of  the  fort  we 
were  taken  to  look  at  two  secret  cells,  which  were  discovered 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


43 


a  few  years  since,  in  consequence  of  the  sinking  of  the  earth 
over  a  narrow  apartment  between  them.  These  cells  are  deep 
under  ground,  vaulted  overhead,  and  without  windows.  In 
one  of  them  a  wooden  machine  was  found,  which  some  sup- 
posed might  have  been  a  rack,  and  in  the  other  a  quantity  of 
human  bones.  The  doors  of  these  cells  had  been  walled  up 
and  concealed  with  stucco  before  the  fort  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  Americans.  "  If  the  Inquisition,"  said  the  gentle- 
man who  accompanied  us,  "  was  established  in  Florida  as  it 
was  in  the  other  American  colonies  of  Spain,  these  were  its 
secret  chambers." 

Yesterday  was  Palm  Sunday,  and  in  the  morning  I  at- 
tended the  services  in  the  Catholic  Church.  One  of  the  cere- 
monies was  that  of  pronouncing  the  benediction  over  a  large 
pile  of  leaves  of  the  cabbage-palm,  or  palmetto,  gathered  in 
the  woods.  After  the  blessing  had  been  pronounced,  the  priest 
called  upon  the  congregation  to  come  and  receive  them.  The 
men  came  forward  first,  in  the  order  of  their  age,  and  then  the 
women  ;  and,  as  the  congregation  consisted  mostly  of  the  de- 
scendants of  Minorcans,  Greeks,  and  Spaniards,  I  had  a  good 
opportunity  of  observing  their  personal  appearance.  The 
younger  portion  of  the  congregation  had,  in  general,  expressive 
countenances.  Their  forms,  it  appeared  to  me,  were  generally 
slighter  than  those  of  our  people ;  and,  if  the  cheeks  of  the 
young  women  were  dark,  they  had  regular  features  and  brill- 
iant eyes,  and  finely  formed  hands.  There  is  spirit,  also,  in 
this  class,  for  one  of  them  has  since  been  pointed  out  to  me  in 
the  streets  as  having  drawn  a  dirk  upon  a  young  officer  who 
presumed  upon  some  improper  freedoms  of  behavior.  The 
services  were  closed  by  a  plain  and  sensible  discourse  in  Eng- 
lish, from  the  priest,  Mr.  Rampon,  a  worthy  and  useful  French 
ecclesiastic,  on  the  obligation  of  temperance  ;  for  the  temper- 
ance reform  has  penetrated  even  hither,  and  cold  water  is 
all  the  rage.  I  went  again,  the  other  evening,  into  the  same 
church,  and  heard  a  person  declaiming,  in  a  language  which, 
at  first,  I  took  be  Minorcan,  for  I  could  make  nothing  else  of 

VOL.  II. — 4 


44 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


it.  After  listening  for  a  few  minutes,  I  found  that  it  was  a 
Frenchman  preaching  in  Spanish,  with  a  French  mode  of  pro- 
nunciation which  was  odd  enough.  I  asked  one  of  the  old 
Spanish  inhabitants  how  he  was  edified  by  this  discourse,  and 
he  acknowledged  that  he  understood  about  an  eighth  part 
of  it. 

ST.  AUGUSTINE,  APRIL  24th :  You  cannot  be  in  St.  Augus- 
tine a  day  without  hearing  some  of  its  inhabitants  speak  of  its 
agreeable  climate.  During  the  sixteen  days  of  my  residence 
here  the  weather  has  certainly  been  as  delightful  as  I  could 
imagine.  We  have  the  temperature  of  early  June,  as  June  is 
known  in  New  York.  The  mornings  are  sometimes  a  little 
sultry,  but  after  two  or  three  hours  a  fresh  breeze  comes  in 
from  the  sea,  sweeping  through  the  broad  piazzas  and  breath- 
ing in  at  the  windows.  At  this  season  it  comes  laden  with  the 
fragrance  of  the  flowers  of  the  Pride  of  India,  and  sometimes 
of  the  orange-tree,  and  sometimes  brings  the  scent  of  roses, 
now  in  full  bloom.  The  nights  are  gratefully  cool,  and  I  have 
been  told,  by  a  person  who  has  lived  here  many  years,  that 
there  are  very  few  nights  in  the  summer  when  you  can  sleep 
without  a  blanket.  An  acquaintance  of  mine,  an  invalid,  who 
has  tried  various  climates  and  has  kept  up  a  kind  of  running 
fight  with  death  for  many  years,  retreating  from  country  to 
country  as  he  pursued,  declares  to  me  that  the  winter  climate  of 
St.  Augustine  is  to  be  preferred  to  that  of  any  part  of  Europe, 
even  that  of  Sicily,  and  that  it  is  better  than  the  climate  of  the 
West  Indies.  He  finds  it  genial  and  equable,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  not  enfeebling.  The  summer  heats  are  prevented 
from  being  intense  by  the  sea-breeze,  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
I  have  looked  over  the  work  of  Dr.  Forry  on  the  climate  of  the 
United  States,  and  have  been  surprised  to  see  the  uniformity 
of  climate  which  he  ascribes  to  Key  West.  As  appears  by 
the  observations  he  has  collected,  the  seasons  at  that  place 
glide  into  each  other  by  the  softest  gradations,  and  the  heat 
never,  even  in  midsummer,  reaches  that  extreme  which  is 
felt  in  higher  latitudes  of  the  American  continent.  The  cli- 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


45 


mate  of  Florida  is  in  fact  an  insular  climate ;  the  Atlantic  on 
the  east  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  west  temper  the  airs 
that  blow  over  it,  making  them  cooler  in  summer  and  warmer 
in  winter.  I  do  not  wonder,  therefore,  that  it  is  so  much  the 
resort  of  invalids ;  it  would  be  more  so  if  the  softness  of  its 
atmosphere  and  the  beauty  and  serenity  of  its  seasons  were 
generally  known.  Nor  should  it  be  supposed  that  accommo- 
dations for  persons  in  delicate  health  are  wanting  ;  they  are  in 
fact  becoming  better  with  every  year,  as  the  demand  for  them 
increases.  Among  the  acquaintances  whom  I  have  made  here, 
I  remember  many  who,  having  come  hither  for  the  benefit  of 
their  health,  are  detained  for  life  by  the  amenity  of  the  climate. 
"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  an  intelligent  gentleman  of  this  class, 
the  other  day,  "  as  if  I  could  not  exist  out  of  Florida.  When 
I  go  to  the  North  I  feel  most  sensibly  the  severe  extremes  of 
the  weather ;  the  climate  of  Charleston  itself  appears  harsh  to 
me."  Here  at  St.  Augustine  we  have  occasional  frosts  in  the 
winter,  but  at  Tampa  Bay,  on  the  western  shore  of  the  penin- 
sula, no  farther  from  this  place  than  from  New  York  to  Al- 
bany, the  dew  is  never  congealed  on  the  grass,  nor  is  a  snow- 
flake  ever  seen  floating  in  the  air.  Those  who  have  passed 
the  winter  in  that  place  speak  with  a  kind  of  rapture  of  the 
benignity  of  the  climate.  In  that  country  grow  the  cocoa 
and  the  banana,  and  other  productions  of  the  West  Indies. 
Persons  who  have  explored  Florida  to  the  south  of  this  dur- 
ing the  past  winter,  speak  of  having  refreshed  themselves 
with  melons  in  January,  growing  where  they  had  been  self- 
sown,  and  of  having  seen  the  sugar-cane,  where  it  had  been 
planted  by  the  Indians,  towering,  uncropped,  almost  to  the 
height  of  the  forest-trees. 

The  other  day  I  went  out  with  a  friend  to  a  sugar  planta- 
tion in  the  neighborhood  of  St.  Augustine.  As  we  rode  into 
the  enclosure  we  breathed  the  fragrance  of  young  orange-trees 
in  flower,  the  glossy  leaves  of  which,  green  at  all  seasons,  were 
trembling  in  the  wind.  A  troop  of  negro  children  were  at 
play  at  a  little  distance  from  the  cabins,  and  one  of  them  ran 


46  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

along  with  us  to  show  us  a  grove  of  sour  oranges,  which  we 
were  looking  for.  He  pointed  us  to  a  copse  in  the  middle  of 
a  field,  to  which  we  proceeded.  The  trees,  which  were  of  con- 
siderable size,  were  full  of  flowers,  and  the  golden  fruit  was 
thick  on  the  branches,  and  lay  scattered  on  the  ground  below. 
I  gathered  a  few  of  the  oranges,  and  found  them  almost  as 
acid  as  the  lemon.  We  stopped  to  look  at  the  buildings  in 
which  the  sugar  was  manufactured.  In  one  of  them  was  the 
mill  where  the  cane  was  crushed  with  iron  rollers ;  in  another 
stood  the  huge  caldrons,  one  after  another,  in  which  the  juice 
was  boiled  down  to  the  proper  consistence  ;  in  another  were 
barrels  of  sugar,  of  syrup — a  favorite  article  of  consumption 
in  this  city  —  of  molasses,  and  a  kind  of  spirits  resembling 
Jamaica  rum,  distilled  from  the  refuse  of  the  molasses.  The 
proprietor  was  absent,  but  three  negroes,  well-clad  young  men, 
of  a  very  respectable  appearance  and  intelligent  physiognomy, 
one  of  whom  was  a  distiller,  were  occupied  about  the  build- 
ings, and  showed  them  to  us.  Near  by  in  the  open  air  lay  a 
pile  of  sugar-cane,  of  the  ribbon  variety,  striped  with  red  and 
white,  which  had  been  plucked  up  by  the  roots  and  reserved 
for  planting.  The  negroes  of  St.  Augustine  are  good-looking 
specimens  of  the  race,  and  have  the  appearance  of  being  very 
well  treated.  You  rarely  see  a  negro  in  ragged  clothing,  and 
the  colored  children,  though  slaves,  are  often  dressed  with 
great  neatness.  In§  the  colored  people  whom  I  saw  in  the 
Catholic  Church  I  remarked  a  more  agreeable,  open,  and  gen- 
tle physiognomy  than  I  have  been  accustomed  to  see  in  that 
class.  The  Spanish  race  blends  more  kindly  with  the  African 
than  does  the  English,  and  produces  handsomer  men  and 
women. 

I  have  been  to  see  the  quarries  of  coquina,  or  shell-rock, 
on  the  island  of  St.  Anastasia,  which  lies  between  St.  Augus- 
tine and  the  main  ocean.  We  landed  on  the  island,  and,  after 
a  walk  of  some  distance  on  a  sandy  road  through  the  thick 
shrubs,  we  arrived  at  some  huts  built  of  a  frame-work  of  poles, 
thatched  with  the  radiated  leaves  of  the  dwarf  palmetto,  which 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH.  47 

had  a  very  picturesque  appearance.  Here  we  found  a  circu- 
lar hollow  in  the  earth,  the  place  of  an  old  excavation,  now 
shaded  with  red-cedars,  and  the  palmetto-royal  bristling  with 
long,  pointed  leaves,  which  bent  over  and  embowered  it,  and 
at  the  bottom  was  a  spring  within  a  square  curb  of  stone, 
where  we  refreshed  ourselves  with  a  draught  of  cold  water. 
The  quarries  were  at  a  little  distance  from  this.  The  rock 
lies  in  the  ridges,  a  little  below  the  surface,  forming  a  stratum 
of  no  great  depth.  The  blocks  are  cut  out  with  crowbars 
thrust  into  the  rock.  It  is  of  a  delicate  cream-color,  and  is 
composed  of  mere  shells  and  fragments  of  shells,  apparently 
cemented  by  the  fresh  water  percolating  through  them  and 
depositing  calcareous  matter  brought  from  the  shells  above. 
Whenever  there  is  any  mixture  of  sand  with  the  shells,  rock 
is  not  formed.  Of  this  material  the  old  fort  of  St.  Mark  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  city  are  built.  It  is  said  to  become 
harder  when  exposed  to  the  air  and  the  rain,  but  to  disinte- 
grate when  frequently  moistened  with  sea-water.  Large 
blocks  were  lying  on  the  shore  ready  to  be  conveyed  to  the 
fort,  which  is  undergoing  repairs.  It  is  some  consolation  to 
know  that  this  fine  old  work  will  undergo  as  little  change  in 
the  original  plan  as  is  consistent  with  the  modern  improve- 
ments in  fortification.  Lieutenant  Benham,  who  has  charge 
of  the  repairs,  has  strong  antiquarian  tastes,  and  will  preserve 
as  much  as  possible  of  its  original  aspect.  It  must  lose  its 
battlements,  however,  its  fine  mural  crown.  Battlements  are 
now  obsolete,  except  when  they  are  of  no  use,  as  on  the  roofs 
of  churches  and  Gothic  cottages. 

In  another  part  of  the  same  island,  which  we  visited  after- 
ward, is  a  dwelling-house  situated  amid  orange-groves.  Close- 
ly planted  rows  of  the  sour  orange,  the  native  tree  of  the  conn- 
try,  intersect  and  shelter  orchards  of  the  sweet  orange,  the 
lemon,  and  the  lime.  The  trees  were  all  young,  having  been 
planted  since  the  great  frost  of  1835,  and  many  of  them  still 
show  the  ravages  of  the  gale  of  last  October,  which  stripped 
them  of  their  leaves.  "  Come  this  way,"  said  a  friend  who 


48  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

accompanied  me.  He  forced  a  passage  through  a  tall  hedge 
of  the  sour  orange,  and  we  found  ourselves  in  a  little  fragrant 
enclosure,  in  the  midst  of  which  was  a  tomb,  formed  of  the 
artificial  stone  of  which  I  have  heretofore  spoken.  It  was 
the  resting-place  of  the  former  proprietor,  who  sleeps  in  this 
little  circle  of  perpetual  verdure.  It  bore  no  inscription. 
Not  far  from  this  spot  I  was  shown  the  root  of  an  ancient 
palm-tree,  the  species  that  produces  the  date,  which  formerly 
towered  over  the  island,  and  served  as  a  sea-mark  to  vessels 
approaching  the  shore.  Some  of  the  accounts  of  St.  Au- 
gustine speak  of  dates  as  among  its  fruits  ;  but  I  believe  that 
only  the  male  tree  of  the  date-palm  has  been  introduced  into 
the  country.  On  our  return  to  the  city,  in  crossing  the  Ma- 
tanzas  Sound,  so  named,  probably,  from  some  sanguinary  battle 
with  the  aborigines  on  its  shores,  we  passed  two  Minorcans 
in  a  boat,  taking  home  fuel  from  the  island.  These  people  are 
a  mild,  harmless  race,  of  civil  manners  and  abstemious  habits. 
Mingled  with  them  are  many  Greek  families,  with  names  that 
denote  their  origin,  such  as  Geopoli,  Cercopoli,  etc.,  and  with 
a  cast  of  features  equally  expressive  of  their  descent.  The 
Minorcan  language,  the  dialect  of  Mahon,  el  Mahones,  as  they 
call  it,  is  spoken  by  more  than  half  of  the  inhabitants  who  re- 
mained here  when  the  country  was  ceded  to  the  United 
States,  and  all  of  them,  I  believe,  speak  Spanish  besides.  Their 
children,  however,  are  growing  up  in  disuse  of  these  lan- 
guages, and  in  another  generation  the  last  traces  of  the  majes- 
tic speech  of  Castile  will  have  been  effaced  from  a  country 
which  the  Spaniards  held  for  more  than  two  hundred  years. 

Some  old  customs  which  the  Minorcans  brought  with 
them  from  their  native  country  are  still  kept  up.  On  the 
evening  before  Easter  Sunday,  about  eleven  o'clock,  I  heard 
the  sound  of  a  serenade  in  the  streets.  Going  out,  I  found  a 
party  of  young  men,  with  instruments  of  music,  grouped 
about  the  window  of  one  of  the  dwellings,  singing  a  hymn  in 
honor  of  the  Virgin  in  the  Mahonese  dialect.  They  began, 
as  I  was  told,  with  tapping  on  the  shutter.  An  answering 


A    TOUR  IN  THE  OLD  SOUTH. 


49 


knock  within  had  told  them  that  their  visit  was  welcome,  and 
they  immediately  opened  the  serenade.  If  no  reply  had  been 
heard,  they  would  have  passed  on  to  another  dwelling.  I  give 
the  hymn  as  it  was  kindly  taken  down  for  me  in  writing  by  a 
native  of  St.  Augustine.  I  presume  this  is  the  first  time  that 
it  has  been  put  in  print,  but  I  fear  the  copy  has  several  cor- 
ruptions, occasioned  by  the  unskilfulness  of  the  copyist.  The 
letter  e  which  I  have  put  in  italics  represents  the  guttural 
French  e,  or  perhaps  more  nearly  the  sound  of  u  in  the  word 
but.  The  sh  of  our  language  is  represented  by  sc  followed  by 
an  i  or  an  e  ;  the  g,  both  hard  and  soft,  has  the  same  sound  as 
in  our  language. 


Disciar<?m  lu  dol, 
Cantarem  anb'  alagria, 
Y  n'arem  a  da 
Las  pascuas  a  Maria. 
O  Maria  ! 

Sant  Gabriel, 

Qui  portaba  la  anbasciada  ; 

Des  nostro  rey  del  eel 

Estarau  vos  prefiada. 

Ya  omiliada, 

Tu  o  vais  aqui  serventa, 

Fia  del  Deu  contenta, 

Para  fe  lo  que  el  vol. 

Disciarem  lu  dol,  etc. 

Y  a  milla  nit, 

Pariguero  vos  regina ; 

A  un  Deu  infinit, 

Dintra  una  establina. 

Y  a  millo  dia, 

Que  los  Angles  van  cantant 

Pau  y  abondant 

De  la  gloria  de  Deu  sol. 

Disciarem  lu  dol,  etc. 


Y  a  Libalam, 
Alia  la  terra  santa, 
Nus  nat  Jesus, 
Anb'  alagria  tanta. 
Infant  petit 

Que  tot  lu  mon  salvaria  ; 
Y  ningu  y  bastaria, 
Nu  mes  un  Deu  tot  sol. 

Disciamn  lu  dol,  etc. 

Cuant  d'Orien  lus 
Tres  reys  la  stralla  veran, 
Deu  omnipotent, 
Adord  lo  vingaran. 
Un  present  inferan, 
De  mil  ^ncens  y  or, 
A  lu  beneit  Sen6, 
Que  conesce  cual  se  vol. 

Disciarcm  lu  dol,  etc. 

Tot  fu  gayant 

Para  cumpli  lu  prumas  ; 

Y  lu  Esperit  sant 

De  un  angel  fau  gramas. 

Gran  foe  ences, 


50  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

Que  crama  lu  curagia  ;  Me  resplanden  que  un  sol. 

Deu  nos  da  lenguagia,  Disciaran  lu  dol,  etc. 

Para  fe  lo  que  Deu  vol.  ...    .  ^ 

_.    .          .     ,  ,  Y  el  tercer  giorn 

Disclaim  lu  dol,  etc.  _       T  , 

Que  Jesus  resunta 

Cuant  trespasa  Deu  y  Aboroma, 

De  quest  mon  nostra  Senora,  Que  la  mort  triumfa. 

Al  eel  sVmpugia  De  alii  se  balla 

Sun  fil  la  matescia  ora.  Para  perldrd  Lucife, 

O  emperadora,  An  tot  a  seu  peudd, 

Que  del  eel  sou  eligida  !  Que  de  nostro  ser  el  sol. 
Lu  rosa  florida,  Disciamn  lu  dol,  etc. 

After  this  hymn,  the  following  stanzas,  soliciting  the  cus- 
tomary gift  of  cakes  or  eggs,  are  sung : 

Ce  set  sois  que  vam  cantant,  As  qui  ^s  mort  par  darnos  vida 

Regina  celastial !  Ya  viu  gloriosament. 


Dunus  pau  y  alagria, 
Y  bonas  festas  tingau. 


Aquesta  casa  esta  empedrada, 
Bien  halla  que  la  empedr6  ; 


Yo  vos  dou  sus  bonas  festas, 

^             ,.    ,     ,  Sun  amo  de  aquesta  casa 

Danaus  dines  de  sus  nous ;  _  , ,  .     ,               , 

0                       .  Baldna  duna  un  do. 

Sempre  taran  lus  mans  llestas  _            .    ,                       , 

...  Furmagiada.  o  empanada, 

Para  recibi  un  grapat  de  ous.  '      , 

Cucutta  o  flao  ; 

Y  el  giorn  de  pascua  florida  Cual  se  vol  cosa  me  grada, 

Alagramos  y  giuntament ;  Sol  que  no  me  digas  que  no. 

The  shutters  are  then  opened  by  the  people  within,  and  a 
supply  of  cheese-cakes,  or  other  pastry,  or  eggs,  is  dropped 
into  a  bag  carried  by  one  of  the  party,  who  acknowledge  the 
gift  in  the  following  lines,  and  then  depart : 

Aqu<rsta  casa  esta  empedrada,  Sun  amo  de  aqu<?sta  casa, 

Empedrada  de  cuatro  vens  ;  ^"s  omo  de  compliment.* 

If  nothing  is  given,  the  last  line  reads  thus  : 
No  es  omo  de  compliment. 

*  Thus  in  the  Spanish  : 

Aquesta  casa  esta  empedrada,  El  amo  de  aquesta  casa 

Empedrada  dc  cuatro  vientos  ;  Es  hombre  de  cortesia. 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


STEAMER  OREGON,  LAKE  HURON,  OFF  THUNDER  BAY, 
JULY  24,  1846  :  Buffalo  continues  to  extend  on  every  side,  but 
the  late  additions  to  the  city  do  not  much  improve  its  beauty. 
Its  nucleus  of  well-built  streets  does  not  seem  to  have  grown 
much  broader  within  the  last  five  years,  but  the  suburbs  are 
rapidly  spreading — small  wooden  houses,  scattered  or  in  clus- 
ters, built  hastily  for  emigrants  along  unpaved  and  powdery 
streets.  I  saw,  however,  on  a  little  excursion  which  I  made 
into  the  surrounding  country,  that  pleasant  little  neighbor- 
hoods are  rising  up  at  no  great  distance,  with  their  neat 
houses,  their  young  trees,  and  their  new  shrubbery. 

On  Tuesday  evening,  at  seven  o'clock,  we  took  passage  in 
the  steamer  Oregon  for  Chicago,  and  soon  lost  sight  of  the 
roofs  and  spires  of  Buffalo.  The  next  morning  found  us  with 
the  southern  shore  of  Lake  Erie  in  sight — a  long  line  of  woods, 
with  here  and  there  a  cluster  of  habitations  on  the  shore. 
"  That  village  where  you  see  the  light-house,"  said  one  of 
the  passengers  who  came  from  the  hills  of  Maine,  "  is  Grand 
River,  and  from  that  place  to  Cleveland,  which  is  thirty  miles 
distant,  you  have  the  most  beautiful  country  under  the  sun — 
perfectly  beautiful,  sir  ;  not  a  hill  the  whole  way,  and  the  finest 
farms  that  were  ever  seen ;  you  can  buy  a  good  farm  there  for 
two  thousand  dollars."  In  two  or  three  hours  afterward  we 
were  at  Cleveland,  and  I  hastened  on  shore.  It  is  situated  be- 


52  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

yond  a  steep  bank  of  the  lake,  nearly  as  elevated  as  the  shore 
at  Brooklyn,  which  we  call  Brooklyn  Heights.  As  I  stood  on 
the  edge  of  this  bank  and  looked  over  the  broad  lake  below 
me,  stretching  beyond  the  sight  and  quivering  in  the  summer 
wind,  I  was  reminded  of  the  lines  of  Southey  : 

"Along  the  bending  line  of  shore 

Such  hue  is  thrown  as  when  the  peacock's  neck 
Assumes  its  proudest  tint  of  amethyst, 
Embathed  in  emerald  glory." 

But  it  was  not  only  along  the  line  of  the  shore  that  these 
hues  prevailed  ;  the  whole  lake  glowed  with  soft  amethystine 
and  emerald  tinges,  in  irregular  masses,  like  the  shades  of 
watered  silk.  Cleveland  stands  in  that  beautiful  country 
without  a  hill,  of  which  my  fellow-passenger  spoke — a  thriving 
village  yet  to  grow  into  a  proud  city  of  the  lake  country.  It 
is  built  upon  broad  dusty  ways,  in  which  not  a  pebble  is  seen 
in  the  fat  dark  earth  of  the  lake  shore,  and  which  are  shaded 
with  locust-trees,  the  variety  called  seed-locust,  with  crowded 
twigs  and  clustered  foliage — a  tree  chosen,  doubtless,  for  its 
rapid  growth,  as  the  best  means  of  getting  up  a  shade  at  the 
shortest  notice.  Here  and  there  were  gardens  filled  with 
young  fruit-trees ;  among  the  largest  and  hardiest  in  appear- 
ance was  the  peach-tree,  which  here  spreads  broad  and  sturdy 
branches,  escapes  the  diseases  that  make  it  a  short-lived  tree 
in  the  Atlantic  States,  and  produces  fruit  of  great  size  and 
richness.  One  of  my  fellow-passengers  could  hardly  find 
adequate  expressions  to  signify  his  high  sense  of  the  delicious- 
ness  of  the  Cleveland  peaches. 

I  made  my  way  to  a  street  of  shops ;  it  had  a  busy  ap- 
pearance, more  so  than  usual,  I  was  told,  for  a  company  of 
circus-riders,  whose  tents  I  had  seen  from  a  distance  on  the 
lake,  was  in  town,  and  this  had  attracted  a  throng  of  people 
from  the  country.  I  saw  a  fruit-stall  tended  by  a  man  who  had 
the  coarsest  red  hair  I  think  I  ever  saw,  and  of  whom  I  bought 
two  or  three  enormous  "  bough-apples,"  as  he  called  them. 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


53 


He  apologized  for  the  price  he  demanded.  "  The  farmers," 
said  he,  "  know  that  just  now  there  is  a  call  for  their  early 
fruit,  while  the  circus  people  are  in  town,  and  they  make  me 
pay  a  'igh  price  for  it."  I  told  him  I  perceived  he  was  no 
Yankee.  "  I  am  a  Londoner,"  he  replied ;  "  and  I  left  London 
twelve  years  ago  to  slave  and  be  a  poor  man  in  Ohio."  He 
acknowledged,  however,  that  he  had  two  or  three  times  got 
together  some  property,  "  but  the  Lord,"  he  said,  "  laid  his 
hand  on  it." 

On  returning  to  the  steamer,  I  found  a  party  of  country 
people,  mostly  young  persons,  of  both  sexes,  thin  and  lank  fig- 
ures, by  no  means  equal,  as  productions  of  the  country,  to  their 
bough-apples.  They  passed  through  the  fine  spacious  cabin 
on  the  upper  deck,  extending  between  the  state-rooms  the 
whole  length  of  the  steamer.  At  length  they  came  to  a  large 
mirror,  which  stood  at  the  stern,  and  seemed  by  its  reflection 
to  double  the  length  of  the  cabin.  They  walked  on,  as  if  they 
would  extend  their  promenade  into  the  mirror,  when  suddenly 
observing  the  reflection  of  their  own  persons  advancing,  and 
thinking  it  another  party,  they  politely  made  way  to  let  it 
pass.  The  party  in  the  mirror  at  the  same  moment  turned  to 
the  same  side,  which  first  showed  them  the  mistake  they  had 
made.  The  passengers  had  some  mirth  at  their  expense,  but  I 
must  do  our  visitors  the  justice  to  say  that  they  joined  in  the 
laugh  with  a  very  good  grace. 

The  same  evening,  at  twelve  o'clock,  we  were  at  Detroit. 
"  You  must  lock  your  state-rooms  in  the  night,"  said  one  of 
the  persons  employed  about  the  vessel,  "  for  Detroit  is  full  of 
thieves."  We  followed  the  advice,  slept  soundly,  and  saw 
nothing  of  the  thieves,  nor  of  Detroit  either,  for  the  steamboat 
was  again  on  her  passage  through  Lake  St.  Clair  at  three  this 
morning,  and  when  I  awoke  we  were  moving  over  the  flats, 
as  they  are  called,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  lake.  The  steamer 
was  threading  her  way  in  a  fog  between  large  patches  of 
sedge  of  a  pea-green  color.  We  had  waited  several  hours  at 
Detroit,  because  this  passage  is  not  safe  at  night,  and  steam- 


54  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

ers  of  a  larger  size  are  sometimes  grounded  here  in  the  day- 
time. 

JULY  25th:  Soon  after  passing  the  flats  and  entering  the 
river  St.  Clair,  the  steamer  stopped  to  take  in  wood  on  the 
Canadian  side.  Here  I  went  on  shore.  All  that  we  could  see 
of  the  country  was  a  road  along  the  bank,  a  row  of  cottages 
at  a  considerable  distance  from  each  other  along  the  road,  a 
narrow  belt  of  cleared  fields  behind  them,  and  beyond  the  fields 
the  original  forest,  standing  like  a  long  lofty  wall,  with  its 
crowded  stems  of  enormous  size  and  immense  height,  rooted  in 
the  strong  soil — ashes  and  maples  and  elms,  the  largest  of  their 
species.  Scattered  in  the  foreground  were  numbers  of  leaf- 
less elms,  so  huge  that  the  settlers,  as  if  in  despair  of  bringing 
them  to  the  ground  by  the  axe,  had  girdled  them  and  left  them 
to  decay  and  fall  at  their  leisure.  We  went  up  to  one  of  the 
houses,  before  which  stood  several  of  the  family,  attracted  to 
the  door  by  the  sight  of  our  steamer.  Among  them  was  an 
intelligent-looking  man,  originally  from  the  State  of  New  York, 
who  gave  quick  and  shrewd  answers  to  our  inquiries.  He 
told  us  of  an  Indian  settlement  about  twenty  miles  farther  up 
the  St.  Clair.  Here  dwell  a  remnant  of  the  Chippewa  tribe, 
collected  by  the  Canadian  government,  which  has  built  for 
them  comfortable  log-houses  with  chimneys,  furnished  them 
with  horses  and  neat  cattle,  and  utensils  of  agriculture, 
erected  a  house  of  worship,  and  given  them  a  missionary. 
"  The  design  of  planting  them  here,"  said  the  settler,  "  was  to 
encourage  them  to  cultivate  the  soil."  "  And  what  has  been  the 
success  of  the  plan?"  I  asked.  "  It  has  met  with  no  success 
at  all,"  he  answered.  "  The  worst  thing  that  the  government 
could  do  for  these  people  is  to  give  them  everything  as  it  has 
done,  and  leave  them  under  no  necessity  to  provide  for  them- 
selves. They  chop  over  a  little  land,  an  acre  or  two  to  a  fam- 
ily ;  their  squaws  plant  a  little  corn  and  a  few  beans,  and  this 
is  the  extent  of  their  agriculture.  They  pass  their  time  in 
hunting  and  fishing,  or  in  idleness.  They  find  deer  and  bears 
in  the  woods  behind  them,  and  fish  in  the  St.  Clair  before  their 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  55 

doors  ;  and  they  squander  their  yearly  pensions.  In  one  re- 
spect they  are  just  like  white  men  :  they  will  not  work  if  they 
can  live  without  it."  "  What  fish  do  they  find  in  the  St. 
Clair?  "  "  Various  sorts.  Trout  and  white-fish  are  the  finest, 
but  they  are  not  so  abundant  at  this  season.  Sturgeon  and 
pike  are  just  now  in  season,  and  the  pike  are  excellent."  One 
of  us  happening  to  observe  that  the  river  might  easily  be 
crossed  by  swimming,  the  settler  answered  :  "  Not  so  easily 
as  you  might  think.  The  river  is  as  cold  as  a  well,  and  the 
swimmer  would  soon  be  chilled  through,  and  perhaps  taken 
with  the  cramp.  It  is  this  coldness  of  the  water  which  makes 
the  fish  so  fine  at  this  season." 

We  now  proceeded  up  the  river,  and  in  about  two  hours 
came  to  a  neat  little  village  on  the  British  side,  with  a  wind- 
mill, a  little  church,  and  two  or  three  little  cottages,  prettily 
screened  by  young  trees.  Immediately  beyond  this  was  the 
beginning  of  the  Chippewa  settlement  of  which  we  had  been 
told.  Log-houses,  at  the  distance  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  each  other,  stood  in  a  long  row  beside  the  river,  with 
scattered  trees  about  them,  the  largest  of  the  forest,  some 
girdled  and  leafless,  some  untouched  and  green,  the  smallest 
trees  between  having  been  cut  away.  Here  and  there  an  In- 
dian woman,  in  a  blue  dress  and  bareheaded,  was  walking 
along  the  road  ;  cows  and  horses  were  grazing  near  the  houses ; 
patches  of  maize  were  seen,  tended  in  a  slovenly  manner  and 
by  no  means  clear  of  bushes,  but  nobody  was  at  work  in  the 
fields.  Two  females  came  down  to  the  bank,  with  paddles, 
and  put  off  into  the  river  in  a  birch-bark  canoe,  the  ends  of 
which  were  carved  in  the  peculiar  Indian  fashion.  A  little  be- 
yond stood  a  group  of  boys  and  girls  on  the  water's  edge,  the 
boys  in  shirts  and  leggings,  silently  watching  the  steamer  as  it 
shot  by  them.  Still  farther  on  a  group  of  children  of  both 
sexes,  seven  in  number,  came  running,  with  shrill  cries,  down 
the  bank.  It  was  then  about  twelve  o'clock,  and  the  weather 
was  extremely  sultry.  The  boys  in  an  instant  threw  off  their 
shirts  and  leggings,  and  plunged  into  the  water  with  shouts, 


56  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

but  the  girls  were  in  before  them,  for  they  wore  only  a  kind  of 
petticoat,  which  they  did  not  take  off,  but  cast  themselves  into 
the  river  at  once  and  slid  through  the  clear  water  like  seals. 
This  little  Indian  colony  on  the  edge  of  the  forest  extends  for 
several  miles  along  the  river,  where  its  banks  are  highest  and 
best  adapted  to  the  purpose  of  settlement.  It  ends  at  last  just 
below  the  village  which  bears  the  name  of  Fort  Saranac,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  which  I  was  shown  an  odd-looking 
wooden  building,  and  was  told  that  this  was  the  house  of  wor- 
ship provided  for  the  Indians  by  the  government. 

At  Fort  Huron,  a  village  on  the  American  side,  opposite 
Fort  Saranac,  we  stopped  to  land  passengers.  Three  Indians 
made  their  appearance  on  the  shore,  one  of  whom,  a  very 
large  man,  wore  a  kind  of  turban,  and  a  white  blanket  made 
into  a  sort  of  frock,  with  bars  of  black  in  several  places — 
altogether  a  striking  costume.  One  of  this  party,  a  well- 
dressed  young  man,  stopped  to  speak  with  somebody  in  the 
crowd  on  the  wharf,  but  the  giant  in  the  turban,  with  his  com- 
panion, strode  rapidly  by,  apparently  not  deigning  to  look  at 
us,  and  disappeared  in  the  village.  He  was  scarcely  out  of 
sight  when  I  perceived  a  boat  approaching  the  shore  with  a 
curiously  mottled  sail.  As  it  came  nearer  I  saw  that  it  was 
a  quilt  of  patchwork  taken  from  a  bed.  In  the  bottom  of  the 
boat  lay  a  barrel,  apparently  of  flour ;  a  stout  young  fellow 
pulled  a  pair  of  oars,  and  a  slender-waisted  damsel,  neatly 
dressed,  sat  in  the  stern,  plying  a  paddle  with  a  dexterity 
which  she  might  have  learned  from  the  Chippewa  ladies,  and 
guiding  the  course  of  the  boat,  which  passed  with  great  speed 
over  the  water. 

We  were  soon  upon  the  broad  waters  of  Lake  Huron,  and 
when  the  evening  closed  upon  us  we  were  already  out  of  sight 
of  land.  The  next  morning  I  was  awakened  by  the  sound  of 
rain  on  the  hurricane  deck.  A  cool  east  wind  was  blowing. 
I  opened  the  outer  door  of  my  state-room  and  snuffed  the  air, 
which  was  strongly  impregnated  with  the  odor  of  burnt  leaves 
or  grass,  proceeding,  doubtless,  from  the  burning  of  woods  or 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


57 


prairies  somewhere  on  the  shores  of  the  lake.  For  mile  after 
mile,  for  hour  after  hour,  as  we  flew  through  the  mist,  the 
same  odor  was  perceptible :  the  atmosphere  of  the  lake  was 
full  of  it.  "  Will  it  rain  all  day?  "  I  asked  of  a  fellow-passenger, 
a  Salem  man,  in  a  white  cravat.  "  The  clouds  are  thin,"  he 
answered ;  "  the  sun  will  soon  burn  them  off."  In  fact,  the 
sun  soon  melted  away  the  clouds,  and  before  ten  o'clock  I  was 
shown,  to  the  north  of  us,  the  dim  shore  of  the  Great  Mani- 
toulin  Island,  with  the  faintly  descried  opening  called  the 
West  Strait,  through  which  a  throng  of  speculators  in  copper 
mines  are  this  summer  constantly  passing  to  the  Sault  St. 
Marie.  On  the  other  side  was  the  sandy  isle  of  Bois  Blanc, 
the  name  of  which  is  commonly  corrupted  into  Bob  Low 
Island,  thickly  covered  with  pines,  and  showing  a  tall  light- 
house on  the  point  nearest  us.  Beyond  another  point  lay  like 
a  cloud  the  island  of  Mackinaw.  I  had  seen  it  once  before, 
but  now  the  hazy  atmosphere  magnified  it  into  a  lofty  moun- 
tain ;  its  limestone  cliffs,  impending  over  the  water,  seemed 
larger ;  the  white  fort — white  as  snow — built  from  the  quarries 
of  the  island,  looked  more  commanding,  and  the  rocky  crest 
above  it  seemed  almost  to  rise  to  the  clouds.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  illusion  in  all  this,  as  we  were  convinced  as  we 
came  nearer ;  but  Mackinaw,  with  its  rocks  rising  from  the 
most  transparent  waters  that  the  earth  pours  out  from  her 
springs,  is  a  stately  object  in  any  condition  of  the  atmosphere. 
The- captain  of  our  steamer  allowed  us  but  a  moment  at 
Mackinaw ;  a  moment  to  gaze  into  the  clear  waters,  and  count 
the  fish  as  they  played  about  without  fear  twenty  or  thirty 
feet  below  our  steamer,  as  plainly  seen  as  if  they  lay  in  the 
air ;  a  moment  to  look  at  the  fort  on  the  heights,  dazzling 
the  eyes  with  its  new  whiteness ;  a  moment  to  observe  the 
habitations  of  this  ancient  village,  some  of  which  show  you 
roofs  and  walls  of  red-cedar  bark  confined  by  horizontal  strips 
of  wood,  a  kind  of  architecture  between  the  wigwam  and 
the  settler's  cabin.  A  few  baskets  of  fish  were  lifted  on 
board,  in  which  I  saw  trout  of  enormous  size — trout  a  yard 


5 8  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

in  length,  and  white-fish  smaller,  but  held,  perhaps,  in  higher 
esteem,  and  we  turned  our  course  to  the  straits  which  lead 
into  Lake  Michigan.  But  we  hope  to  see  more  of  Mackinaw 
on  our  return. 

JULY  3 ist:  The  odor  of  burnt  leaves  continued  to  accom- 
pany us,  and  from  the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  thickly 
covered  with  wood,  we  saw  large  columns  of  smoke,  several 
miles  apart,  rising  into  the  hazy  sky.  The  steamer  turned 
toward  the  eastern  shore,  and  about  an  hour  before  sunset 
stopped  to  take  in  wood  at  the  upper  Maneto  Island,  where 
we  landed  and  strolled  into  the  forest.  Part  of  the  island 
is  high,  but  this,  where  we  went  on  shore,  consists  of  hil- 
locks and  hollows  of  sand,  like  the  waves  of  the  lake  in  one 
of  its  storms,  and  looking  as  if  successive  storms  had  swept 
them  up  from  the  bottom.  They  were  covered  with  an  enor- 
mous growth  of  trees  which  must  have  stood  for  centuries. 
We  admired  the  astonishing  transparency  of  the  water  on 
this  shore,  the  clean  sands,  without  any  intermixture  of  mud, 
the  pebbles  of  almost  chalky  whiteness,  and  the  stones  in  the 
edge  of  the  lake,  to  which  adhered  no  slime,  nor  green  moss, 
nor  aquatic  weed.  In  the  light-green  depths,  far  down,  but 
distinctly  seen,  shoals  of  fish,  some  of  them  of  large  size,  came 
quietly  playing  about  the  huge  hull  of  our  steamer.  On  the 
shore  were  two  log  -  houses  inhabited  by  woodmen,  one  of 
whom  drew  a  pail  of  water,  for  the  refreshment  of  some  of  the 
passengers,  from  a  well  dug  in  the  sand  by  his  door.  "  It  is 
not  so  good  as  the  lake  water,"  said  I,  for  I  saw  it  was  not  so 
clear.  "  It  is  colder,  though,"  answered  the  man ;  "  but  I 
must  say  that  there  is  no  purer  or  sweeter  water  in  the  world 
than  that  of  our  lake." 

Next  morning  we  were  coasting  the  western  shore  of  Lake 
Michigan,  a  high  bank  presenting  a  long  line  of  forest.  This 
was  broken  by  the  little  town  of  Sheboygan,  with  its  light- 
house among  the  shrubs  of  the  bank,  its  cluster  of  houses  just 
built,  among  which  were  two  hotels,  and  its  single  schooner 
lying  at  the  mouth  of  a  river.  You  probably  never  heard  of 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


59 


Sheboygan  before;  it  has  just  sprung  up  in  the  forests  of 
Wisconsin;  the  leaves  have  hardly  withered  on  the  trees 
that  were  felled  to  make  room  for  its  houses;  but  it  will 
make  a  noise  in  the  world  yet.  "  It  is  the  prettiest  place 
on  the  lake,"  said  a  passenger,  whom  we  left  there,  with 
three  chubby  and  healthy  children,  a  lady  who  had  already 
lived  long  enough  at  Sheboygan  to  be  proud  of  it.  Farther 
on  we  came  to  Milwaukee,  which  is  rapidly  becoming  one 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  West.  It  lies  within  a  semicircle 
of  green  pastoral  declivities  sprinkled  with  scattered  trees, 
where  the  future  streets  are  to  be  built.  We  landed  at  a 
kind  of  wharf,  formed  by  a  long  platform  of  planks  laid  on 
piles,  under  which  the  water  flows,  and  extending  to  some 
distance  into  the  lake,  and  along  which  a  car,  running  on  a 
railway,  took  the  passengers  and  their  baggage,  and  a  part  of 
the  freight  of  the  steamer,  to  the  shore.  "  Will  you  go  up  to 
town,  sir  ?  "  was  the  question  with  which  I  was  saluted  by  the 
drivers  of  a  throng  of  vehicles  of  all  sorts  as  soon  as  I  reached 
the  land.  They  were  ranged  along  a  firm  sandy  beach  be- 
tween the  lake  and  the  river  of  Milwaukee.  On  one  side  the 
light-green  waters  of  the  lake,  of  crystalline  clearness,  came 
rolling  in  before  the  wind,  and  on  the  other  the  dark  thick 
waters  of  the  river  lay  still  and  stagnant  in  the  sun.  We  did 
not  go  up  to  the  town,  but  we  could  see  that  it  was  compactly 
built,  and  in  one  quarter  nobly.  A  year  or  two  since,  that 
quarter  had  been  destroyed  by  fire,  and  on  the  spot  several 
large  and  lofty  warehouses  had  been  erected,  with  an  hotel  of 
the  largest  class.  They  were  of  a  fine  light-brown  color,  and, 
when  I  learned  that  they  were  of  brick,  I  inquired  of  a  by- 
stander if  that  was  the  natural  color  of  the  material.  "  They 
are  of  Milwaukee  brick,"  he  answered,  "  and  neither  painted 
nor  stained;  and  are  better  brick,  besides,  than  are  made 
at  the  eastward."  Milwaukee  is  said  to  contain,  at  pres- 
ent, about  ten  thousand  inhabitants.  Here  the  belt  of  for- 
est that  borders  the  lake  stretches  back  for  several  miles  to 
the  prairies  of  Wisconsin.  "The  Germans,"  said  a  passen- 

VOL.   II. — 5 


60  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

ger,  "  are  already  in  the  woods  hacking  at  the  trees,  and  will 
soon  open  the  country  to  the  prairies." 

We  made  a  short  stop  at  Racine,  prettily  situated  on  the 
bank  among  the  scattered  trees  of  an  oak  opening,  and  another 
at  Southport,  a  rival  town  eleven  miles  farther  south.  It  is 
surprising  how  many  persons  travel  as  way-passengers  from 
place  to  place  on  the  shores  of  these  lakes.  Five  years  ago  the 
number  was  very  few ;  now  they  comprise,  at  least,  half  the 
number  on  board  a  steamboat  plying  between  Buffalo  and 
Chicago.  When  all  who  travel  from  Chicago  to  Buffalo  shall 
cross  the  peninsula  of  Michigan  by  the  more  expeditious  route 
of  the  railway,  the  Chicago  and  Buffalo  line  of  steamers, 
which  its  owners  claim  to  be  the  finest  line  in  the  world,  will 
still  be  crowded  with  people  taken  up  or  to  be  set  down  at 
some  of  the  intermediate  towns. 

When  we  awoke  the  next  morning  our  steamer  was  at  Chi- 
cago. Any  one  who  had  seen  this  place,  as  I  had  done  five 
years  ago,  when  it  contained  less  than  five  thousand  people, 
would  find  some  difficulty  in  recognizing  it  now,  when  its  popu- 
lation is  more  than  fifteen  thousand.  It  has  its  long  rows  of 
warehouses  and  shops,  its  bustling  streets ;  its  huge  steamers, 
and  crowds  of  lake-craft,  lying  at  the  wharves ;  its  villas  em- 
bowered with  trees;  and  its  suburbs,  consisting  of  the  cot- 
tages of  German  and  Irish  laborers,  stretching  northward 
along  the  lake  and  westward  into  the  prairies,  and  widening 
every  day.  The  slovenly  and  raw  appearance  of  a  new  set- 
tlement begins  in  many  parts  to  disappear.  The  Germans 
have  already  a  garden  in  a  little  grove  for  their  holidays,  as 
in  their  towns  in  the  old  country,  and  the  Roman  Catholics 
have  just  finished  a  college  for  the  education  of  those  who 
are  to  proselyte  the  West.  The  day  was  extremely  hot,  and 
at  sunset  we  took  a  short  drive  along  the  little  belt  of  firm 
sand  which  forms  the  border  of  the  lake.  Light-green  waves 
came  to  the  shore  in  long  lines,  with  a  crest  of  foam,  like 
a  miniature  surf,  rolling  in  from  that  inland  ocean,  and,  as 
they  dashed  against  the  legs  of  the  horses  and  the  wheels  of 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  6 1 

our  carriage,  the  air  that  played  over  them  was  exceedingly 
refreshing.  .  .  . 

SAULT  ST.  MARIE,  AUGUST  i3th:  It  was  a  hot  August 
morning  as  the  steamer  Wisconsin,  an  unwieldy  bulk,  dipping 
and  bobbing  upon  the  small  waves,  and  trembling  at  every 
stroke  of  the  engine,  swept  out  into  the  lake  on  our  return 
from  Chicago.  The  southwest  wind  during  the  warmer  por- 
tion of  the  summer  months  is  a  sort  of  sirocco  in  Illinois.  It 
blows  with  considerable  strength,  but,  passing  over  an  im- 
mense extent  of  heated  plains,  it  brings  no  coolness.  It  was 
such  an  air  that  accompanied  us  on  our  way  north  from  Chi- 
cago ;  and,  as  the  passengers  huddled  into  the  shady  places 
outside  of  the  state-rooms  on  the  upper  deck,  I  thought  of  the 
flocks  of  quails  I  had  seen  gasping  in  the  shadow  of  the  rail- 
fences  on  the  prairies.  People  here  expose  themselves  to  a 
draught  of  air  with  much  less  scruple  than  they  do  in  the  At- 
lantic States.  "  We  do  not  take  cold  by  it,"  they  said  to  me 
when  I  saw  them  sitting  in  a  current  of  wind,  after  perspiring 
freely.  If  they  do  not  take  cold,  it  is  odds  but  they  take  some- 
thing else — a  fever,  perhaps,  or  what  is  called  a  bilious  attack. 
The  vicissitudes  of  climate  at  Chicago  and  its  neighborhood 
are  more  sudden  and  extreme  than  with  us,  but  the  inhabitants 
say  that  they  are  not  often  the  cause  of  catarrhs,  as  in  the  At- 
lantic States.  Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  I  have  met  with  no 
person  since  I  came  to  the  West  who  appeared  to  have  a 
catarrh.  From  this  region,  perhaps,  will  hereafter  proceed 
singers  with  the  clearest  pipes. 

Some  forty  miles  beyond  Chicago  we  stopped  for  half  an 
hour  at  Little  Fort,  one  of  those  flourishing  little  towns  which 
are  springing  up  on  the  lake  shore  to  besiege  future  Con- 
gresses for  money  to  build  their  harbors.  This  settlement 
has  started  up  in  the  woods  within  the  last  three  or  four 
years,  and  its  cluster  of  roofs,  two  of  the  broadest  of  which 
cover  respectable  -  looking  hotels,  already  makes  a  consider- 
able figure  when  viewed  from  the  lake.  We  passed  to  the 
shore  over  a  long  platform  of  planks  framed  upon  two  rows 


62  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

of  posts  or  piles  planted  in  the  sandy  shallows.  "  We  make 
a  port  in  this  manner  on  any  part  of  the  western  shore  of 
the  lake,"  said  a  passenger,  "  and  convenient  ports  they  are, 
except  in  very  high  winds.  On  the  eastern  shore,  the  coast 
of  Michigan,  they  have  not  this  advantage ;  the  ice  and  the 
northwest  winds  would  rend  such  a  wharf  as  this  in  pieces. 
On  this  side,  too,  the  water  of  the  lake,  except  when  an 
east  wind  blows,  is  smoother  than  on  the  Michigan  coast, 
and  the  steamers  therefore  keep  under  the  shelter  of  this 
bank." 

At  Southport,  still  farther  north,  in  the  new  State  of  Wis- 
consin, we  procured  a  kind  of  omnibus  and  were  driven  over 
the  town,  which,  for  a  new  settlement,  is  uncommonly  pretty. 
We  crossed  a  narrow  inlet  of  the  lake,  a  creek  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  term,  a  winding  channel,  with  water  in  the  midst, 
and  a  rough  growth  of  water-flags  and  sedges  on  the  sides. 
Among  them  grew  the  wild  rice,  its  bending  spikes,  heavy 
with  grain,  almost  ready  for  the  harvest.  "  In  the  northern 
marshes  of  Wisconsin,"  said  one  of  our  party, "  I  have  seen  the 
Indian  women  gathering  this  grain.  Two  of  them  take  their 
places  in  a  canoe ;  one  of  them,  seated  in  the  stern,  pushes  it 
with  her  paddle  through  the  shallows  of  standing  water,  while 
the  other,  sitting  forward,  bends  the  heads  of  the  rice-plant 
over  the  sides  of  the  canoe,  strikes  them  with  a  little  stick,  and 
causes  the  grain  to  fall  within  it.  In  this  way  are  collected 
large  quantities,  which  serve  as  the  winter  food  of  the  Meno- 
monies  and  some  other  tribes."  The  grain  of  the  wild  rice,  I 
was  told,  is  of  a  dark  color,  but  palatable  as  food.  The  gen- 
tleman who  gave  me  this  account  had  made  several  attempts 
to  procure  it,  in  a  fit  state  to  be  sown,  for  Judge  Buel,  of 
Albany,  who  was  desirous  of  trying  its  cultivation  on  the 
grassy  shallows  of  our  Eastern  rivers.  He  was  not  success- 
ful at  first,  because,  as  soon  as  the  grain  is  collected,  it  is  kiln- 
dried  by  the  Indians,  which  destroys  the  vegetative  princi- 
ple. At  length,  however,  he  obtained  and  sent  on  a  small 
quantity  of  the  fresh  rice,  but  it  reached  Judge  Buel  only  a 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  63 

short  time  before  his  death,  and  the  experiment  probably  has 
not  been  made. 

On  one  side  of  the  creek  was  a  sloping  bank  of  some 
height,  where  tall  old  forest-trees  were  growing.  Among 
these  stood  three  houses,  just  built,  and  the  space  between 
them  and  the  water  was  formed  into  gardens  with  regular  ter- 
races faced  with  turf.  Another  turn  of  our  vehicle  brought 
us  into  a  public  square,  where  the  oaks  of  the  original  forest 
were  left  standing,  a  miniature  of  the  Champs  Elystes,  surround- 
ing which,  among  the  trees,  stand  many  neat  houses,  some  of 
them  built  of  a  drab-colored  brick.  Back  of  the  town  we  had 
a  glimpse  of  a  prairie  approaching  within  half  a  mile  of  the 
river.  We  were  next  driven  through  a  street  of  shops,  and 
thence  to  our  steamer.  The  streets  of  Southport  are  beds  of 
sand,  and  one  of  the  passengers,  who  professed  to  speak  from 
some  experience,  described  the  place  as  "haunted  by  myriads 
of  fleas. 

It  was  not  till  about  one  o'clock  of  the  second  night  after 
leaving  Chicago  that  we  landed  again  at  Mackinaw,  and,  after 
an  infinite  deal  of  trouble  in  getting  our  luggage  together,  and 
keeping  it  together,  we  were  driven  to  the  Mission  House, 
a  plain,  comfortable  old  wooden  house,  built  thirty  or  forty 
years  since  by  a  missionary  society,  and  now  turned  into  a 
hotel.  Beside  the  road,  close  to  the  water's  edge,  stood 
several  wigwams  of  the  Pottawattamies,  pyramids  of  poles 
wrapped  around  with  rush  matting,  each  containing  a  family 
asleep.  The  place  was  crowded  with  people  on  their  way  to 
the  mining  regions  of  Lake  Superior,  or  returning  from  it, 
and  we  were  obliged  to  content  ourselves  with  narrow  ac- 
commodations for  the  night.  At  half-past  seven  the  next 
morning  we  departed  for  the  Sault  St.  Marie  in  the  little 
steamer  General  Scott.  The  wind  was  blowing  fresh,  and 
a  score  of  persons  who  had  intended  to  visit  the  Sault  were 
withheld  by  the  fear  of  sea-sickness,  so  that  half  a  dozen  of 
us  had  the  steamer  to  ourselves.  In  three  or  four  hours  we 
found  ourselves  gliding  out  of  the  lake,  through  smooth  water, 


64  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

between  two  low  points  of  land  covered  with  firs  and  pines, 
into  the  west  strait.  We  passed  Drummond's  Island,  and 
then  coasted  St.  Joseph's  Island,  on  the  woody  shore  of  which 
I  was  shown  a  solitary  house.  There  I  was  told  lives  a  long- 
nosed  Englishman,  a  half-pay  officer,  with  two  wives,  sisters, 
each  the  mother  of  a  numerous  offspring.  This  English  po- 
lygamist  has  been  more  successful  in  seeking  solitude  than  in 
avoiding  notoriety.  The  very  loneliness  of  his  habitation  on 
the  shore  causes  it  to  be  remarked,  and  there  is  not  a  passen- 
ger who  makes  the  voyage  to  the  Sault  to  whom  his  house  is 
not  pointed  out  and  his  story  related.  It  was  hinted  to  me 
that  he  had  a  third  wife  in  Toronto,  but  I  have  my  private 
doubts  of  this  part  of  the  story,  and  suspect  that  it  was  thrown 
in  to  increase  my  wonder. 

Beyond  the  island  of  St.  Joseph  we  passed  several  islets  of 
rock,  with  fir-trees  growing  from  the  clefts.  Here,  in  summer, 
I  was  told,  the  Indians  often  set  up  their  wigwams,  and  sub- 
sist by  fishing.  There  were  none  in  sight  as  we  passed,  but 
we  frequently  saw  on  either  shore  the  skeletons  of  the  Chip- 
pewa  habitations.  These  consist,  not  like  those  of  the  Potta- 
wattamies,  of  a  circle  of  sticks  placed  in  the  form  of  a  cone, 
but  of  slender  poles  bent  into  circles,  so  as  to  make  an  almost 
regular  hemisphere,  over  which,  while  it  serves  as  a  dwelling, 
birch-bark  and  mats  of  bulrushes  are  thrown.  On  the  west- 
ern side  of  the  passage,  opposite  St.  Joseph's  Island,  stretches 
the  long  coast  of  Sugar  Island,  luxuriant  with  an  extensive 
forest  of  the  sugar-maple,  where  the  Indians  manufacture 
maple-sugar  in  the  spring.  I  inquired  concerning  their  agri- 
culture. "  They  plant  no  corn  nor  squashes,"  said  a  passenger, 
who  had  resided  for  some  time  at  the  Sault ;  "  they  will  not 
ripen  in  this  climate ;  but  they  plant  potatoes  in  the  sugar- 
bush,  and  dig  them  when  the  spring  opens.  They  have  no 
other  agriculture  ;  they  plant  no  beans,  as  I  believe  the  Indians 
do  elsewhere."  A  violent  squall  of  wind  and  rain  fell  upon 
the  water  just  as  we  entered  that  broad  part  of  the  passage 
which  bears  the  name  of  Muddy  Lake.  In  ordinary  weather 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  65 

the  waters  here  are  perfectly  pure  and  translucent,  but  now 
their  agitation  brought  up  the  loose  earth  from  the  shallow 
bottom,  and  made  them  as  turbid  as  the  Missouri,  with  the 
exception  of  a  narrow  channel  in  the  midst,  where  the  current 
runs  deep.  Rocky  hills  now  began  to  show  themselves  to  the 
east  of  us ;  we  passed  the  sheet  of  water  known  by  the  name 
of  Lake  George,  and  came  to  a  little  river  which  appeared  to 
have  its  source  at  the  foot  of  a  precipitous  ridge  on  the  British 
side.  It  is  called  Garden  River,  and  a  little  beyond  it,  on  the 
same  side,  lies  Garden  Village,  inhabited  by  the  Indians.  It 
was  deserted,  the  Indians  having  gone  to  attend  a  great  as- 
semblage of  their  race,  held  on  one  of  the  Manitoulin  islands, 
where  they  are  to  receive  their  annual  payments  from  the  Brit- 
ish government.  Here  were  log-houses,  and  skeletons  of  wig- 
wams, from  which  the  coverings  had  been  taken.  An  Indian, 
when  he  travels,  takes  with  him  his  family  and  his  furniture, 
the  matting  for  his  wigwam,  his  implements  for  hunting  and 
fishing,  his  dogs  and  cats,  and  finds  a  home  wherever  he  finds 
poles  for  a  dwelling.  A  tornado  had  recently  passed  over  the 
Garden  Village.  The  numerous  girdled  trees  which  stood  on 
its  little  clearing  had  been  twisted  off  midway  or  near  the 
ground  by  the  wind,  and  the  roofs  had,  in  some  instances,  been 
lifted  from  the  cabins.  At  length,  after  a  winding  voyage  of 
sixty  miles,  between  wild  banks  of  forest,  in  some  places  smok- 
ing with  fires,  in  some  looking  as  if  never  violated  either  by 
fire  or  steel,  with  huge  carcasses  of  trees  mouldering  on  the 
ground,  and  venerable  trees  standing  over  them,  bearded  with 
streaming  moss,  we  came  in  sight  of  the  white  rapids  of  the 
Sault  St.  Marie.  We  passed  the  humble  cabins  of  the  half- 
breeds  on  either  shore,  with  here  and  there  a  round  wigwam 
near  the  water ;  we  glided  by  a  white  chimney  standing  be- 
hind a  screen  of  fir-trees,  which,  we  were  told,  had  belonged 
to  the  dwelling  of  Tanner,  who  himself  set  fire  to  his  house 
the  other  day,  before  murdering  Mr.  Schoolcraft,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  were  at  the  wharf  of  this  remotest  settlement  of  the 
Northwest. 


66  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

FALLS  OF  ST.  MARIE,  AUGUST  isth:  A  crowd  had  assem- 
bled on  the  wharf  of  the  American  village  at  the  Sault  St. 
Marie,  popularly  called  the  Soo,  to  witness  our  landing ; 
men  of  all  ages  and  complexions,  in  hats  and  caps  of  every 
form  and  fashion,  with  beards  of  every  length  and  color, 
among  which  I  discovered  two  or  three  pairs  of  mustaches. 
It  was  a  party  of  copper-mine  speculators,  just  flitting  from 
Copper  Harbor  and  Eagle  River,  mixed  with  a  few  Indian 
and  half-breed  inhabitants  of  the  place.  Among  them  1  saw 
a  face  or  two  quite  familiar  in  Wall  Street.  I  had  a  conver- 
sation with  an  intelligent  geologist,  who  had  just  returned 
from  an  examination  of  the  copper  mines  of  Lake  Superior. 
He  had  pitched  his  tent  in  the  fields  near  the  village,  choosing 
to  pass  the  night  in  this  manner,  as  he  had  done  for  several 
weeks  past,  rather  than  in  a  crowded  inn.  In  regard  to  the 
mines,  he  told  me  that  the  external  tokens — the  surface  indica- 
tions, as  he  called  them — were  more  favorable  than  those  of 
any  copper  mines  in  the  world.  They  are  still,  however,  mere 
surface  indications ;  the  veins  had  not  been  worked  to  that 
depth  which  was  necessary  to  determine  their  value  with  any 
certainty.  The  mixture  of  silver  with  the  copper  he  regarded 
as  not  giving  any  additional  value  to  the  mines,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  only  occasional  and  rare.  Sometimes,  he  told  me,  a  mass 
of  metal  would  be  discovered  of  the  size  of  a  man's  fist,  or 
smaller,  composed  of  copper  and  silver,  both  metals  closely 
united,  yet  both  perfectly  pure,  and  unalloyed  with  each  other. 
The  masses  of  virgin  copper  found  in  beds  of  gravel  are,  how- 
ever, the  most  remarkable  feature  of  these  mines.  One  of 
them,  which  has  been  discovered  this  summer,  but  which  has 
not  been  raised,  is  estimated  to  weigh  twenty  tons.  I  saw  in 
the  propeller  Independence,  by  which  this  party  from  the  cop- 
per mines  was  brought  down  to  the  Sault,  one  of  these  masses, 
weighing  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  having  once  been  fluid  with  heat.  It  was  so  pure 
that  it  might  have  been  cut  in  pieces  by  cold  steel  and  stamped 
at  once  into  coin. 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  67 

Two  or  three  years  ago  this  settlement  of  the  Sault  St. 
Marie  was  but  a  military  post  of  the  United  States,  in  the 
midst  of  a  village  of  Indians  and  half-breeds.  There  were, 
perhaps,  a  dozen  white  residents  in  the  place,  including  the 
family  of  the  Baptist  missionary  and  the  agent  of  the  Ameri- 
can Fur  Company,  which  had  removed  its  station  hither  from 
Mackinaw,  and  built  its  warehouse  on  this  river.  But,  since 
the  world  has  begun  to  talk  of  the  copper  mines  of  Lake  Su- 
perior, settlers  flock  into  the  place ;  carpenters  are  busy  in 
putting  up  houses  with  all  haste  on  the  government  lands, 
and  large  warehouses  have  been  built  upon  piles  driven  into 
the  shallows  of  the  St.  Marie.  Five  years  hence,  the  primitive 
character  of  the  place  will  be  altogether  lost,  and  it  will  have 
become  a  bustling  Yankee  town,  resembling  the  other  new 
settlements  of  the  West. 

Here  the  navigation  from  lake  to  lake  is  interrupted  by  the 
falls  or  rapids  of  the  river  St.  Marie,  from  which  the  place 
receives  its  name.  The  crystalline  waters  of  Lake  Superior, 
on  their  way  through  the  channel  of  this  river  to  Lake  Huron, 
rush  and  foam  and  roar,  for  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile, 
over  rocks  and  large  stones.  Close  to  the  rapids,  with  birchen 
canoes  moored  in  little  inlets,  is  a  village  of  the  Indians,  con- 
sisting of  log-cabins  and  round  wigwams,  on  a  shrubby  level, 
reserved  to  them  by  the  government.  The  morning  after  our 
arrival  we  went  through  this  village  in  search  of  a  canoe  and 
a  couple  of  Indians,  to  make  the  descent  of  the  rapids,  which 
is  one  of  the  first  things  that  a  visitor  to  the  Sault  must  think 
of.  In  the  first  wigwam  that  we  entered  were  three  men  and 
two  women  as  drunk  as  they  could  well  be.  The  squaws 
were  speechless  and  motionless — too  far  gone,  as  it  seemed,  to 
raise  either  hand  or  foot ;  the  men,  though  apparently  unable 
to  rise,  were  noisy,  and  one  of  them,  who  called  himself  a  half- 
breed  and  spoke  a  few  words  of  English,  seemed  disposed  to 
quarrel.  Before  the  next  door  was  a  woman  busy  in  washing, 
who  spoke  a  little  English.  "  The  old  man  out  there,"  she 
said,  in  answer  to  our  questions,  "  can  paddle  canoe,  but  he  is 


68  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

very  drunk ;  he  cannot  do  it  to-day."  "  Is  there  nobody  else," 
we  asked,  "  who  will  take  us  down  the  falls  ?  "  "I  don't  know  ; 
the  Indians  all  drunk  to-day."  "  Why  is  that  ?  why  are  they 
all  drunk  to-day  ?  "  "  Oh  !  the  whiskey,"  answered  the  woman, 
giving  us  to  understand  that  when  an  Indian  could  get  whiskey 
he  got  drunk  as  a  matter  of  course.  By  this  time  the  man 
had  come  up,  and,  after  addressing  us  with  the  customary 
"  bonjour"  manifested  a  curiosity  to  know  the  nature  of  our 
errand.  The  woman  explained  it  to  him  in  English.  "  Oh  ! 
messieurs,  je  vous  servirai,"  said  he,  for  he  spoke  Canadian 
French ;  "  I  go,  I  go."  We  told  him  that  we  doubted  whether 
he  was  quite  sober  enough.  "  Oh !  messieurs,  je  suis  parfaite- 
ment  capable — first  rate,  first  rate."  We  shook  him  off  as 
soon  as  we  could,  but  not  till  after  he  had  time  to  propose 
that  we  should  wait  till  the  next  day,  and  to  utter  the  maxim, 
"  Whiskey,  good — too  much  whiskey,  no  good." 

In  a  log-cabin,  which  some  half-breeds  were  engaged  in 
building,  we  found  two  men  who  were  easily  persuaded  to 
leave  their  work  and  pilot  us  over  the  rapids.  They  took  one 
of  the  canoes  which  lay  in  a  little  inlet  close  at  hand,  and, 
entering  it,  pushed  it  with  their  long  poles  up  the  stream  in 
the  edge  of  the  rapids.  Arriving  at  the  head  of  the  rapids, 
they  took  in  our  party,  which  consisted  of  five,  and  we  began 
the  descent.  At  each  end  of  the  canoe  sat  a  half-breed,  with 
a  paddle,  to  guide  it  while  the  current  drew  us  rapidly  down 
among  the  agitated  waters.  It  was  surprising  with  what  dex- 
terity they  kept  us  in  the  smoothest  part  of  the  water,  seem- 
ing to  know  the  way  down  as  well  as  if  it  had  been  a  beaten 
path  in  the  fields.  At  one  time  we  would  seem  to  be  directly 
approaching  a  rock  against  which  the  waves  were  dashing,  at 
another  to  be  descending  into  a  hollow  of  the  waters  in  which 
our  canoe  would  be  inevitably  filled,  but  a  single  stroke  of  the 
paddle  given  by  the  man  at  the  prow  put  us  safely  by  the 
seeming  danger.  So  rapid  was  the  descent  that  almost  as 
soon  as  we  descried  the  apparent  peril  it  was  passed.  In  less 
than  ten  minutes,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  we  had  left  the  roar  of 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  69 

the  rapids  behind  us,  and  were  gliding  over  the  smooth  water 
at  their  foot. 

In  the  afternoon  we  engaged  a  half-breed  and  his  brother 
to  take  us  over  to  the  Canadian  shore.  His  wife,  a  slender 
young  woman  with  a  lively  physiognomy,  not  easily  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  a  French  woman  of  her  class,  accompanied 
us  iu  the  canoe  with  her  little  boy.  The  birch-bark  canoe  of 
the  savage  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  perfect 
things  of  the  kind  constructed  by  human  art.  We  were  in 
one  of  the  finest  that  float  on  St.  Marie  River,  and  when  I 
looked  at  its  delicate  ribs,  mere  shavings  of  white  cedar,  yet 
firm  enough  for  the  purpose,  the  thin,  broad  laths  of  the  same 
wood  with  which  these  are  enclosed,  and  the  broad  sheets  of 
birch-bark,  impervious  to  water,  which  sheathed  the  outside, 
all  firmly  sewed  together  by  the  tough,  slender  roots  of  the 
fir-tree,  and  when  I  considered  its  extreme  lightness  and  the 
grace  of  its  form,  I  could  not  but  wonder  at  the  ingenuity  of 
those  who  had  invented  so  beautiful  a  combination  of  ship- 
building and  basket-work.  "  It  cost  me  twenty  dollars,"  said 
the  half-breed,  "  and  I  would  not  take  thirty  for  it."  We  were 
ferried  over  the  waves  where  they  dance  at  the  foot  of  the 
rapids.  At  this  place  large  quantities  of  white-fish,  one  of  the 
most  delicate  kinds  known  on  our  continent,  are  caught  by 
the  Indians,  in  their  season,  with  scoop-nets.  The  whites  are 
about  to  interfere  with  this  occupation  of  the  Indians,  and  I 
saw  the  other  day  a  seine  of  prodigious  length  constructing, 
with  which  it  is  intended  to  sweep  nearly  half  the  river  at 
once.  "  They  will  take  a  hundred  barrels  a  day,"  said  an  in- 
habitant of  the  place. 

On  the  British  side  the  rapids  divide  themselves  into  half 
a  dozen  noisy  brooks,  which  roar  around  little  islands,  and  in 
the  boiling  pools  of  which  the  speckled  trout  is  caught  with 
the  rod  and  line.  We  landed  at  the  warehouses  of  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Company,  where  the  goods  intended  for  the  Indian 
trade  are  deposited,  and  the  furs  brought  from  the  Northwest 
are  collected.  They  are  surrounded  by  a  massive  stockade, 


70  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

within  which  lives  the  agent  of  the  company,  the  walks  are 
gravelled  and  well-kept,  and  the  whole  bears  the  marks  of  Brit- 
ish solidity  and  precision.  A  quantity  of  furs  had  been 
brought  in  the  day  before,  but  they  were  locked  up  in  the 
warehouse,  and  all  was  now  quiet  and  silent.  The  agent  was 
absent ;  a  half-breed  nurse  stood  at  the  door  with  his  child, 
and  a  Scotch  servant,  apparently  with  nothing  to  do,  was 
lounging  in  the  court  enclosed  by  the  stockade ;  in  short,  there 
was  less  bustle  about  this  centre  of  one  of  the  most  powerful 
trading  companies  in  the  world  than  about  one  of  our  farm- 
houses. Crossing  the  bay,  at  the  bottom  of  which  these 
buildings  stand,  we  landed  at  a  Canadian  village  of  half- 
breeds.  Here  were  one  or  two  wigwams  and  a  score  of  log- 
cabins,  some  of  which  we  entered.  In  one  of  them  we  were 
received  with  great  appearance  of  deference  by  a  woman  of 
decidedly  Indian  features,  but  light-complexioned,  barefoot, 
with  blue  embroidered  leggings  falling  over  her  ankles  and 
sweeping  the  floor,  the  only  peculiarity  of  Indian  costume 
about  her.  The  house  was  as  clean  as  scouring  could  make 
it,  and  her  two  little  children,  with  little  French  physiogno- 
mies, were  fairer  than  many  children  of  the  European  race. 
These  people  are  descended  from  the  French  voyageurs  and 
settlers  on  one  side ;  they  speak  Canadian  French  more  or  less, 
but  generally  employ  the  Chippewa  language  in  their  inter- 
course with  each  other. 

Near  at  hand  was  a  burial-ground,  with  graves  of  the 
Indians  and  half-breeds.  Some  of  the  graves  were  covered 
with  a  low  roof  of  cedar-bark,  others  with  a  wooden  box; 
over  others  was  placed  a  little  house  like  a  dog-kennel,  ex- 
cept that  it  had  no  door  ;  others  were  covered  with  little  log- 
cabins.  One  of  these  was  of  such  a  size  that  a  small  Indian 
family  would  have  found  it  amply  large  for  their  accommo- 
dation. It  is  a  practice  among  the  savages  to  protect  the 
graves  of  the  dead  from  the  wolves  by  stakes  driven  into  the 
ground  and  meeting  at  the  top  like  the  rafters  of  a  roof; 
and,  perhaps,  when  the  Indian  or  half-breed  exchanged  his 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  71 

wigwam  for  a  log-cabin,  his  respect  for  the  dead  led  him  to 
make  the  same  improvement  in  the  architecture  of  their  nar- 
row houses.  At  the  head  of  most  of  these  monuments  stood 
wooden  crosses,  for  the  population  here  is  principally  Roman 
Catholic,  some  of  them  inscribed  with  the  names  of  the  dead, 
not  always  accurately  spelled.  Not  far  from  the  church 
stands  a  building,  regarded  by  the  half-breeds  as  a  wonder  of 
architecture,  the  stone  house,  la  maison  de  pierre,  as  they  call 
it,  a  large  mansion  built  of  stone  by  a  former  agent  of  the 
Northwest  or  Hudson  Bay  Company,  who  lived  here  in  a  kind 
of  grand  manorial  style,  with  his  servants  and  horses  and 
hounds,  and  gave  hospitable  dinners  in  those  days  when  it 
was  the  fashion  for  the  host  to  do  his  best  to  drink  his  guests 
under  the  table.  The  old  splendor  of  the  place  has  departed, 
its  gardens  are  overgrown  with  grass,  the  barn  has  been  blown 
down,  the  kitchen  in  which  so  many  grand  dinners  were 
cooked  consumed  by  fire,  and  the  mansion,  with  its  broken  and 
patched  windows,  is  now  occupied  by  a  Scotch  farmer  of  the 
name  of  Wilson. 

We  climbed  a  ridge  of  hills  back  of  the  house  to  the  church 
of  the  Episcopal  Mission,  built  a  few  years  ago  as  a  place  of 
worship  for  the  Chippewas,  who  have  since  been  removed  by 
the  government.  It  stands  remote  from  any  habitation,  with 
three  or  four  Indian  graves  near  it,  and  we  found  it  filled  with 
hay.  The  view  from  its  door  is  uncommonly  beautiful,  the 
broad  St.  Marie  lying  below,  with  its  bordering  villages  and 
woody  valley,  its  white  rapids  and  its  rocky  islands,  pictur- 
esque with  the  pointed  summits  of  the  fir-tree.  To  the  north- 
west the  sight  followed  the  river  to  the  horizon,  where  it  is- 
sued from  Lake  Superior,  and  I  was  told  that  in  clear  weather 
one  might  discover,  from  the  spot  on  which  I  stood,  the  prom- 
ontory of  Gros  Cap,  which  guards  the  outlet  of  that  mighty 
lake.  The  country  around  was  smoking  in  a  dozen  places 
with  fires  in  the  woods.  When  I  returned  I  asked  who 
kindled  them.  "  It  is  old  Tanner,"  said  one,  "  the  man  who 
murdered  Schoolcraft."  There  is  great  fear  here  of  Tanner, 


72  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL, 

who  is  thought  to  be  lurking  yet  in  the  neighborhood.  I  was 
going  the  other  day  to  look  at  a  view  of  the  place  from  an 
eminence,  reached  by  a  road  passing  through  a  swamp,  full  of 
larches  and  firs.  "  Are  you  not  afraid  of  Tanner  ?  "  I  was 
asked.  Mrs.  Schoolcraft,  since  the  assassination  of  her  hus- 
band, has  come  to  live  in  the  fort,  which  consists  of  barracks 
protected  by  a  high  stockade.  It  is  rumored  that  Tanner  has 
been  seen  skulking  about  within  a  day  or  two,  and  yesterday 
a  place  was  discovered  which  is  supposed  to  have  served  for 
his  retreat.  It  was  a  hollow,  thickly  surrounded  by  shrubs, 
which  some  person  had  evidently  made  his  habitation  for  a 
considerable  time.  There  is  a  dispute  whether  this  man  is 
insane  or  not,  but  there  is  no  dispute  as  to  his  malignity.  He 
has  threatened  to  take  the  life  of  Mr.  Bingham,  the  venerable 
Baptist  missionary  at  this  place,  and,  as  long  as  it  is  not  cer- 
tain that  he  has  left  the  neighborhood,  a  feeling  of  insecurity 
prevails.  Nevertheless,  as  I  know  no  reason  why  this  man 
should  take  it  into  his  head  to  shoot  me,  I  go  whither  I  list, 
without  the  fear  of  Tanner  before  my  eyes. 

MACKINAW,  AUGUST  ipth:  We  were  detained  two  days 
longer  than  we  expected  at  the  Sault  St.  Marie  by  the  fail- 
ure of  the  steamer  General  Scott  to  depart  at  the  proper 
time.  If  we  could  have  found  a  steamer  going  up  Lake  Su- 
perior, we  should  most  certainly  have  quieted  our  impatience 
at  this  delay  by  embarking  on  board  of  her.  But  the  only 
steamer  in  the  river  St.  Marie  above  the  falls,  which  is  a  sort 
of  arm  or  harbor  of  Lake  Superior,  was  the  Julia  Palmer,  and 
she  was  lying  aground  in  the  pebbles  and  sand  of  the  shore. 
She  had  just  been  dragged  over  the  portage  which  passes 
round  the  falls,  where  a  broad  path,  with  hillocks  flattened,  and 
trunks  hewn  off  close  to  the  surface,  gave  tokens  of  the  vast 
bulk  that  had  been  moved  over  it.  The  moment  she  touched 
the  water  she  stuck  fast,  and  the  engineer  was  obliged  to  go 
to  Cleveland  for  additional  machinery  to  move  her  forward. 
He  had  just  arrived  with  the  proper  apparatus,  and  the 
steamer  had  begun  to  work  its  way  slowly  into  the  deep  water ; 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


73 


but  some  days  must  yet  elapse  before  she  can  float,  and  after 
that  the  engine  must  be  put  together. 

Had  the  Julia  Palmer  been  ready  to  proceed  up  the  lake,  I 
should  have  seized  the  occasion  to  be  present  at  an  immense 
assemblage  of  Indians  on  Madeleine  Island.  This  island  lies 
far  in  the  lake,  near  its  remoter  extremity.  On  one  of  its 
capes,  called  La  Pointe,  is  a  missionary  station  and  an  In- 
dian village,  and  here  the  savages  are  gathering  in  vast  num- 
bers to  receive  their  annual  payments  from  the  United  States. 
"There  were  already  two  thousand  of  them  at  La  Pointe 
when  I  left  the  place,"  said  an  intelligent  gentleman  who 
had  just  returned  from  the  lake,  "and  they  were  starving. 
If  an  Indian  family  has  a  stock  of  provisions  on  hand  sufficient 
for  a  month,  it  is  sure  to  eat  it  up  in  a  week,  and  the  Indians 
at  La  Pointe  had  already  consumed  all  they  had  provided,  and 
were  living  on  what  they  could  shoot  in  the  woods,  or  get  by 
fishing  in  the  lake."  I  inquired  of  him  the  probable  number 
of  Indians  the  occasion  would  bring  together.  "  Seven  thou- 
sand," he  answered.  "  Among  them  are  some  of  the  wildest 
tribes  on  the  continent,  whose  habits  have  been  least  changed 
by  the  neighborhood  of  the  white  man.  A  new  tribe  will 
come  in  who  never  before  would  have  any  transactions  with 
the  government.  They  are  called  the  Pillagers,  a  fierce  and 
warlike  race,  proud  of  their  independence,  and,  next  to  the 
Blackfeet  and  the  Comanches,  the  most  ferocious  and  formi- 
dable tribe  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States.  They 
inhabit  the  country  about  Red  River  and  the  head-waters  of 
the  Mississippi."  I  was  further  told  that  some  of  the  Indian 
traders  had  expressed  their  determination  to  disregard  the 
law,  set  up  their  tents  at  La  Pointe,  and  sell  spirits  to  the  sav- 
ages. "  If  they  do,  knives  will  be  drawn,"  was  the  common 
saying  at  the  Sault ;  and  at  the  fort  I  learned  that  a  requi- 
sition had  arrived  from  La  Pointe  for  twenty  men  to  enforce 
the  law  and  prevent  disorder.  "  We  cannot  send  half  the 
number,"  said  the  officer  who  commanded  at  the  fort ;  "  we 
have  but  twelve  men  in  all ;  the  rest  of  the  garrison  have  been 


74  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

ordered  to  the  Mexican  frontier,  and  it  is  necessary  that  some- 
body should  remain  to  guard  the  public  property."  The  call 
for  troops  has  since  been  transferred  to  the  garrison  at  Macki- 
naw, from  which  they  will  be  sent.  I  learned  afterward,  from 
an  intelligent  lady  of  the  half-caste  at  the  Sault,  that  letters 
had  arrived  from  which  it  appeared  that  more  than  four  thou- 
sand Indians  were  already  assembled  at  La  Pointe,  and  that 
their  stock  of  provisions  was  exhausted.  "  They  expected," 
said  the  lady,  "to  be  paid  off  on  the  i$th  of  August,  but  the 
government  has  changed  the  time  to  nearly  a  month  later. 
This  is  unfortunate  for  the  Indians,  for  now  is  the  time  of  their 
harvest,  the  season  for  gathering  wild  rice  in  the  marshes,  and 
they  must,  in  consequence,  not  only  suffer  with  hunger  now, 
but  in  the  winter  also." 

In  a  stroll  which  we  made  through  the  Indian  village,  situ- 
ated close  to  the  rapids,  we  fell  in  with  a  half-breed,  a  sensible- 
looking  man,  living  in  a  log-cabin,  whose  boys,  the  offspring  of 
a  squaw  of  the  pure  Indian  race,  were  practicing  with  their 
bows  and  arrows.  "  You  do  not  go  to  La  Pointe?"  we  asked. 
"  It  is  too  far  to  go  for  a  blanket,"  was  his  answer ;  he  spoke 
tolerable  English.  This  man  seemed  to  have  inherited  from 
the  white  side  of  his  ancestry  somewhat  of  the  love  of  a  con- 
stant habitation,  for  a  genuine  Indian  has  no  particular  dislike 
to  a  distant  journey.  He  takes  his  habitation  with  him,  and  is 
at  home  wherever  there  is  game  and  fish,  and  poles  with  which 
to  construct  his  lodge.  In  a  further  conversation  with  the 
half-breed,  he  spoke  of  the  Sault  as  a  delightful  abode,  and  ex- 
patiated on  the  pleasures  of  the  place.  "  It  is  the  greatest 
place  in  the  world  for  fun,"  said  he ;  "  we  dance  all  winter ; 
our  women  are  all  good  dancers ;  our  little  girls  can  dance  sin- 
gle and  double  jigs  as  good  as  anybody  in  the  States.  That 
little  girl  there,"  pointing  to  a  long-haired  girl  at  the  door, 
"  will  dance  as  good  as  anybody."  The  fusion  of  the  two 
races  in  this  neighborhood  is  remarkable,  the  mixed  breed 
running  by  gradual  shades  into  the  aboriginal  on  the  one  hand, 
and  into  the  white  on  the  other — children  with  a  tinge  of  the 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST. 


75 


copper  hue  in  the  families  of  white  men,  and  children  scarcely 
less  fair  sometimes  seen  in  the  wigwams.  Some  of  the  half- 
caste  ladies  at  the  Falls  of  St.  Marie,  who  have  been  educated 
in  the  Atlantic  States,  are  persons  of  graceful  and  dignified 
manners  and  agreeable  conversation. 

I  attended  worship  at  the  fort. on  Sunday.  The  services 
were  conducted  by  the  chaplain,  who  is  of  the  Methodist 
persuasion  and  a  missionary  at  the  place,  assisted  by  the 
Baptist  missionary.  I  looked  about  me  for  some  evidence 
of  the  success  of  their  labors,  but  among  the  worshippers  I 
saw  not  one  male  of  Indian  descent.  Of  the  females,  half  a 
dozen,  perhaps,  were  of  the  half-caste ;  and,  as  two  of  these 
walked  away  from  the  church,  I  perceived  that  they  wore  a 
fringed  clothing  for  the  ankles,  as  if  they  took  a  certain  pride 
in  this  badge  of  their  Indian  extraction.  In  the  afternoon  we 
drove  down  the  west  bank  of  the  river  to  attend  religious 
service  at  an  Indian  village,  called  the  Little  Rapids,  about 
two  miles  and  a  half  from  the  Sault.  Here  the  Methodists 
have  built  a  mission-house,  maintain  a  missionary,  and  instruct 
a  fragment  of  the  Chippewa  tribe.  We  found  the  missionary, 
Mr.  Speight,  a  Kentuckian,  who  has  wandered  to  this  north- 
ern region,  quite  ill,  and  there  was  consequently  no  service. 
We  walked  through  the  village,  which  is  prettily  situated  on 
a  swift  and  deep  channel  of  the  St.  Marie,  where  the  green 
waters  rush  between  the  main-land  and  a  wooded  island.  It 
stands  on  rich  meadows  of  the  river,  with  a  path  running  be- 
fore it,  parallel  with  the  bank,  along  the  velvet  sward,  and 
backed  at  no  great  distance  by  the  thick  original  forest,  which 
not  far  below  closes  upon  the  river  on  both  sides.  The  in- 
habitants at  the  doors  and  windows  of  their  log-cabins  had 
a  demure  and  subdued  aspect ;  they  were  dressed  in  their 
clean  Sunday  clothes,  and  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  place 
formed  a  strong  contrast  to  the  debaucheries  we  had  wit- 
nessed at  the  village  by  the  falls.  We  fell  in  with  an  Indian, 
a  quiet  little  man,  of  very  decent  appearance,  who  answered 
our  questions  with  great  civility.  We  asked  to  whom  be- 

VOL.   II. — 6 


76  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

longed  the  meadows  lying  back  of  the  cabins,  on  which  we 
saw  patches  of  rye,  oats,  and  potatoes.  "  Oh !  they  belong  to 
the  mission;  the  Indians  work  them."  "Are  they  good  peo- 
ple, these  Indians?"  "  Oh,  yes,  good  people."  "Do  they 
never  drink  too  much  whiskey  ?  "  "  Well,  I  guess  they  drink 
too  much  whiskey  sometimes."  There  was  a  single  wigwam 
in  the  village,  apparently  a  supplement  to  one  of  the  log- 
cabins.  We  looked  in  and  saw  two  Indian  looms,  from  which 
two  unfinished  mats  were  depending.  Mrs.  Speight,  the  wife 
of  the  missionary,  told  us  that,  a  few  days  before,  the  village 
had  been  full  of  these  lodges;  that  the  Indians  delighted  in 
them  greatly,  and  always  put  them  up  during  the  mosquito 
season;  "for  a  mosquito,"  said  the  good  lady,  "will  never 
enter  a  wigwam;"  and  that  lately,  the  mosquitoes  having 
disappeared,  and  the  nights  having  grown  cooler,  they  had 
taken  down  all  but  the  one  we  saw.  We  passed  a  few  minutes 
in  the  house  of  the  missionary,  to  which  Mrs.  Speight  kindly 
invited  us.  She  gave  a  rather  favorable  account  of  the  Indians 
under  her  husband's  charge,  but  manifestly  an  honest  one,  and 
without  any  wish  to  extenuate  the  defects  of  their  character. 
"  There  are  many  excellent  persons  among  them,"  she  said ; 
"  they  are  a  kind,  simple,  honest  people,  and  some  of  them  are 
eminently  pious."  "  Do  they  follow  any  regular  industry  ?  " 
"  Many  of  them  are  as  regularly  industrious  as  the  whites,  ris- 
ing early  and  continuing  at  their  work  in  the  fields  all  day. 
They  are  not  so  attentive  as  we  could  wish  to  the  education 
of  their  children.  It  is  difficult  to  make  them  send  their 
children  regularly  to  school ;  they  think  they  confer  a  favor 
in  allowing  us  to  instruct  them,  and,  if  they  happen  to  take  a 
little  offence,  their  children  are  kept  at  home.  The  great  evil 
against  which  we  have  to  guard  is  the  love  of  strong  drink. 
When  this  is  offered  to  an  Indian,  it  seems  as  if  it  was  not  in 
his  nature  to  resist  the  temptation.  I  have  known  whole  con- 
gregations of  Indians — good  Indians — ruined  and  brought  to 
nothing  by  the  opportunity  of  obtaining  whiskey  as  often  as 
they  pleased."  We  inquired  whether  the  numbers  of  the 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  77 

people  at  the  mission  were  diminishing.  She  could  not 
speak  with  much  certainty  as  to  this  point,  having  been 
only  a  year  and  a  half  at  the  mission,  but  she  thought  there 
was  a  gradual  decrease.  "  The  families  of  the  Indians,"  she 
said,  in  answer  to  one  of  my  questions,  "  are  small.  In  one 
family  at  the  village  are  six  children,  and  it  is  the  talk  of  all 
the  Indians,  far  and  near,  as  something  extraordinary.  Gen- 
erally the  number  is  much  smaller,  and  more  than  half  the 
children  die  in  infancy.  Their  means  would  not  allow  them 
to  rear  many  children,  even  if  the  number  of  births  was 
greater."  Such  appears  to  be  the  destiny  of  the  red  race 
while  in  the  presence  of  the  white — decay  and  gradual  ex- 
tinction, even  under  circumstances  apparently  the  most  favor- 
able to  its  preservation. 

On  Monday  we  left  the  Falls  of  St.  Marie,  in  the  steamer 
General  Scott,  on  our  return  to  Mackinaw.  There  were 
about  forty  passengers  on  board — men  in  search  of  copper- 
mines  and  men  in  search  of  health,  and  travellers  from 
curiosity,  Virginians,  New  Yorkers,  wanderers  from  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Massachusetts,  and  I  believe  several  other  States.  On 
reaching  Mackinaw  in  the  evening,  our  party  took  quarters 
in  the  Mansion  House,  the  obliging  host  of  which  stretched 
his  means  to  the  utmost  for  our  accommodation.  Mackinaw 
is  at  the  present  moment  crowded  with  strangers,  attracted  by 
the  cool,  healthful  climate  and  the  extreme  beauty  of  the  place. 
We  were  packed  for  the  night  almost  as  closely  as  the  Potta- 
wattamies,  whose  lodges  were  on  the  beach  before  us.  Par- 
lors and  garrets  were  turned  into  sleeping-rooms ;  beds  were 
made  on  the  floors  and  in  the  passages,  and  double-bedded 
rooms  were  made  to  receive  four  beds.  It  is  no  difficult 
feat  to  sleep  at  Mackinaw,  even  in  an  August  night,  and  we 
soon  forgot,  in  a  refreshing  slumber,  the  narrowness  of  our 
quarters. 

STEAMER  ST.  Louis,  LAKE  HURON,  AUGUST  2oth:  Yester- 
day evening  we  left  the  beautiful  island  of  Mackinaw,  after 
a  visit  of  two  days  delightfully  passed.  We  had  climbed  its 


;8  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

cliffs,  rambled  on  its  shores,  threaded  the  walks  among  its 
thickets,  driven  out  on  the  roads  that  wind  through  its  woods 
— roads  paved  by  nature  with  limestone  pebbles,  a  sort  of 
natural  macadamization,  and  the  time  of  our  departure  seemed 
to  arrive  several  days  too  soon.  The  fort  which  crowns  the 
heights  near  the  shore  commands  an  extensive  prospect,  but  a 
still  wider  one  is  to  be  seen  from  the  old  fort — Fort  Holmes,  as 
it  is  called — among  whose  ruined  intrenchments  the  half-breed 
boys  and  girls  now  gather  gooseberries.  It  stands  on  the  very 
crest  of  the  island,  overlooking  all  the  rest.  The  air,  when  we 
ascended  it,  was  loaded  with  the  smoke  of  burning  forests,  but 
from  this  spot,  in  clear  weather,  I  was  told  a  magnificent  view 
might  be  had  of  the  Straits  of  Mackinaw,  the  wooded  islands, 
and  the  shores  and  capes  of  the  great  main-land — places  known 
to  history  for  the  past  two  centuries.  For  when  you  are  at 
Mackinaw  you  are  at  no  new  settlement. 

In  looking  for  samples  of  Indian  embroidery  with  porcu- 
pine quills,  we  found  ourselves  one  day  in  the  warehouse  of 
the  American  Fur  Company  at  Mackinaw.  Here  on  the 
shelves  were  piles  of  blankets,  white  and  blue,  red  scarfs,  and 
white  boots  ;  snow-shoes  were  hanging  on  the  walls,  and  wolf- 
traps,  rifles,  and  hatchets  were  slung  to  the  ceiling — an  assort- 
ment of  goods  destined  for  the  Indians  and  half-breeds  of  the 
Northwest.  The  person  who  attended  at  the  counter  spoke 
English  with  a  foreign  accent.  I  asked  him  how  long  he  had 
been  in  the  northwestern  country.  "To  say  the  truth,"  he 
answered,  "  I  have  been  here  sixty  years  and  some  days." 
"  You  were  born  here,  then  ?  "  "  I  am  a  native  of  Mackinaw, 
French  by  the  mother's  side;  my  father  was  an  Englishman." 
"  Was  the  place  as  considerable  sixty  years  ago  as  it  now  is?  " 
"  More  so.  There  was  more  trade  here,  and  quite  as  many 
inhabitants.  All  the  houses,  or  nearly  all,  were  then  built ; 
two  or  three  only  have  been  put  up  since."  I  could  easily 
imagine  that  Mackinaw  must  have  been  a  place  of  conse- 
quence when  here  was  the  centre  of  the  fur  trade,  now  re- 
moved farther  up  the  country.  I  was  shown  the  large  house 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST.  79 

in  which  the  heads  of  the  companies  of  voyageurs  engaged  in 
the  trade  were  lodged,  and  the  barracks,  a  long,  low  building, 
in  which  the  voyageurs  themselves,  seven  hundred  in  number, 
made  their  quarters  from  the  end  of  June  to  the  beginning  of 
October,  when  they  went  out  again  on  their  journeys.  This 
interval  of  three  months  was  a  merry  time  with  those  light- 
hearted  Frenchmen.  When  a  boat  made  its  appearance  ap- 
proaching Mackinaw,  they  fell  to  conjecturing  to  what  com- 
pany of  voyageurs  it  belonged  ;  as  the  dispute  grew  warm  the 
conjectures  became  bets,  till  finally,  unable  to  restrain  their 
impatience,  the  boldest  of  them  dashed  into  the  waters,  swam 
out  to  the  boat,  and,  climbing  on  board,  shook  hands  with  their 
brethren,  amid  the  shouts  of  those  who  stood  on  the  beach. 
They  talk,  on  the  New  England  coast,  of  Chebacco  boats, 
built  after  a  peculiar  pattern,  and  called  after  Chebacco,  an 
ancient  settlement  of  seafaring  men,  who  have  foolishly 
changed  the  old  Indian  name  of  their  place  to  Ipswich.  The 
Mackinaw  navigators  have  also  given  their  name  to  a  boat  of 
peculiar  form,  sharp  at  both  ends,  swollen  at  the  sides,  and 
flat-bottomed,  an  excellent  sea-boat,  it  is  said,  as  it  must  be  to 
live  in  the  wild  storms  that  surprise  the  mariner  on  Lake  Su- 
perior. 

We  took  yesterday  a  drive  to  the  western  shore.  The 
road  twined  through  a  wood  of  overarching  beeches  and 
maples,  interspersed  with  the  white-cedar  and  fir.  The  driver 
stopped  before  a  cliff  sprouting  with  beeches  and  cedars,  with 
a  small  cavity  at  the  foot.  This  he  told  us  was  the  Skull 
Cave.  It  is  only  remarkable  on  account  of  human  bones  hav- 
ing been  found  in  it.  Farther  on  a  white  paling  gleamed 
through  the  trees ;  it  enclosed  the  solitary  burial-ground  of 
the  garrison,  with  half  a  dozen  graves.  "  There  are  few 
buried  here,"  said  a  gentleman  of  our  party ;  "  the  soldiers 
who  come  to  Mackinaw  sick  get  well  soon."  The  road  we 
travelled  was  cut  through  the  woods  by  Captain  Scott,  who 
commanded  at  the  fort  a  few  years  since.  He  is  the  marks- 
man whose  aim  was  so  sure  that  the  Western  people  say  of 


SO  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

him  that  a  raccoon  on  a  tree  once  offered  to  come  down 
and  surrender  without  giving  him  the  trouble  to  fire.  We 
passed  a  farm  surrounded  with  beautiful  groves.  In  one  of 
its  meadows  was  fought  the  battle  between  Colonel  Croghan 
and  the  British  officer  Holmes  in  the  war  of  1813.  Three 
luxuriant  beeches  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  woods,  north  of  the 
meadow ;  one  of  them  is  the  monument  of  Holmes  ;  he  lies 
buried  at  its  root.  Another  quarter  of  a  mile  led  us  to  a  little 
bay  on  the  solitary  shore  of  the  lake  looking  to  the  northwest. 
It  is  called  the  British  Landing,  because  the  British  troops 
landed  here  in  the  late  war  to  take  possession  of  the  island.  We 
wandered  about  awhile,  and  then  sat  down  upon  the  embank- 
ment of  pebbles  which  the  waves  of  the  lake,  heaving  for  cen- 
turies, have  heaped  around  the  shore  of  the  island — pebbles 
so  clean  that  they  would  no  more  soil  a  lady's  white  muslin 
gown  than  if  they  had  been  of  newly  polished  alabaster.  The 
water  at  our  feet  was  as  transparent  as  the  air  around  us.  On 
the  main-land  opposite  stood  a  church  with  its  spire,  and  sev- 
eral roofs  were  visible,  with  a  background  of  woods  behind 
them.  "  There,"  said  one  of  our  party,  "  is  the  old  Mission 
Church.  It  was  built  by  the  Catholics  in  1680,  and  has  been 
a  place  of  worship  ever  since.  The  name  of  the  spot  is  Point 
St.  Ignace,  and  there  lives  an  Indian  of  the  full  caste,  who  was 
sent  to  Rome  and  educated  to  be  a  priest,  but  he  preferred  the 
life  of  a  layman,  and  there  he  lives  on  that  wild  shore,  with  a 
library  in  his  lodge,  a  learned  savage,  occupied  with  reading 
and  study."  You  may  well  suppose  that  I  felt  a  strong  de- 
sire to  see  Point  St.  Ignace,  its  venerable  Mission  Church,  its 
Indian  village,  so  long  under  the  care  of  Catholic  pastors,  and 
its  learned  savage  who  talks  Italian ;  but  the  time  of  my  de- 
parture was  already  fixed.  My  companions  were  pointing 
out  on  that  shore  the  mouth  of  Carp  River — which  comes 
down  through  the  forest  roaring  over  rocks,  and  in  any  of  the 
pools  of  which  you  have  only  to  throw  a  line,  with  any  sort 
of  bait,  to  be  sure  of  a  trout — when  the  driver  of  our  vehicle 
called  out,  "  Your  boat  is  coming."  We  looked,  and  saw  the 


THE  EARLY  NORTHWEST,  8 1 

St.  Louis  steamer,  not  one  of  the  largest,  but  one  of  the  finest 
boats  on  the  line  between  Buffalo  and  Chicago,  making  rapidly 
for  the  island,  with  a  train  of  black  smoke  hanging  in  the  air 
behind  her.  We  hastened  to  return  through  the  woods,  and 
in  an  hour  and  a  half  we  were  in  our  clean  and  comfortable 
quarters  in  this  well-ordered  little  steamer. 

But  I  should  mention  that  before  leaving  Mackinaw  we 
did  not  fail  to  visit  the  principal  curiosities  of  the  place,  the 
Sugar  Loaf  Rock — a  remarkable  rock  in  the  middle  of  the 
island,  of  a  sharp  conical  form,  rising  above  the  trees  by  which 
it  is  surrounded,  and  lifting  the  stunted  birches  on  its  shoul- 
ders higher  than  they,  like  a  tall  fellow  holding  up  a  little  boy 
to  overlook  a  crowd  of  men — and  the  Arched  Rock  on  the 
shore.  The  atmosphere  was  thick  with  smoke,  and  through 
the  opening  spanned  by  the  arch  of  the  rock  I  saw  the  long 
waves,  rolled  up  by  a  fresh  wind,  come  one  after  another  out 
of  the  obscurity  and  break  with  roaring  on  the  beach.  The 
path  along  the  brow  of  the  precipice  and  among  the  ever- 
greens, by  which  this  rock  is  reached,  is  singularly  wild,  but 
another,  which  leads  to  it  along  the  shore,  is  no  less  pictur- 
esque— passing  under  impending  cliffs  and  overshadowing  ce- 
dars, and  between  huge  blocks  and  pinnacles  of  rock.  I  spoke 
in  one  of  my  former  letters  of  the  manifest  fate  of  Mackinaw, 
which  is  to  be  a  watering-place.  I  cannot  see  how  it  is  to  es- 
cape this  destiny.  People  already  begin  to  repair  to  it,  for 
health  and  refreshment,  from  the  southern  borders  of  Lake 
Michigan.  Its  climate  during  the  summer  months  is  delight- 
ful ;  there  is  no  air  more  pure  and  elastic,  and  the  winds  of  the 
south  and  the  southwest,  which  are  so  hot  on  the  prairies,  ar- 
rive here  tempered  to  a  grateful  coolness  by  the  waters  over 
which  they  have  swept.  The  nights  are  always,  in  the  hottest 
season,  agreeably  cool,  and  the  health  of  the  place  is  prover- 
bial. The  world  has  not  many  islands  so  beautiful  as  Macki- 
naw, as  you  may  judge  from  the  description  I  have  already 
given  of  parts  of  it.  The  surface  is  singularly  irregular,  with 
summits  of  rock  and  pleasant  hollows,  open  glades  of  pastur- 


82  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

age,  and  shady  nooks.  To  some,  the  savage  visitors — who  oc- 
casionally set  up  their  lodges  on  its  beach,  as  well  as  on  that 
of  the  surrounding  islands,  and  paddle  their  canoes  in  its 
waters — will  be  an  additional  attraction.  I  cannot  but  think 
with  a  kind  of  regret  on  the  time,  which  I  suppose  is  near  at 
hand,  when  its  wild  and  lonely  woods  will  be  intersected  with 
highways,  and  filled  with  cottages  and  boarding-houses. 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE; 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  FRANCE. — PARIS,  AUGUST  9,  1834: 
Since  we  first  landed  in  France,  every  step  of  our  journey  has 
reminded  us  that  we  were  in  an  old  country.  Everything  we 
saw  spoke  of  the  past,  of  an  antiquity  without  limit ;  every- 
where our  eyes  rested  on  the  handiwork  of  those  who  had 
been  dead  for  ages,  and  we  were  in  the  midst  of  customs 
which  they  had  bequeathed  to  their  descendants.  The 
churches  were  so  vast,  so  solid,  so  venerable,  and  time-eaten  ; 
the  dwellings  so  gray,  and  of  such  antique  architecture,  and 
in  the  large  towns,  like  Rouen,  rose  so  high,  and  overhung 
with  such  quaint  projections  the  narrow  and  cavernous  streets ; 
the  thatched  cots  were  so  mossy  and  so  green  with  grass ! 
The  very  hills  about  them  looked  scarcely  as  old,  for  there 
was  youth  in  their  vegetation — their  shrubs  and  flowers.  The 
countrywomen  wore  such  high  caps,  such  long  waists,  and 
such  short  petticoats ! — the  fashion  of  bonnets  is  an  innova- 
tion of  yesterday,  which  they  regard  with  scorn.  We  passed 
females  riding  on  donkeys,  the  Old  Testament  beast  of  bur- 


*  Mr.  Bryant  made  no  less  than  six  voyages  to  Europe,  of  all  of  which  he  gave 
running  accounts  in  letters  to  his  journal,  which  were  subsequently  gathered  in  vol- 
umes, entitled  "Letters  of  a  Traveller"  (G.  P.  Putnam  &  Son,  1869),  "  Letters 
from  Spain"  (G.P.  Putnam  &  Son,  1869),  and  "  Letters  from  the  East  "  (G.  P.  Put- 
nam &  Son,  1869).  The  interest  of  these  have  largely  passed  away,  owing  to  lapses 
of  time,  yet  a  few  extracts  from  them  may  not  be  unacceptable  to  the  general 
reader. 


84  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

den,  with  panniers  on  each  side,  as  was  the  custom  hundreds 
of  years  since.  We  saw  ancient  dames  sitting  at  their  doors 
with  distaffs,  twisting  the  thread  by  twirling  the  spindle  be- 
tween the  thumb  and  finger,  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  Homer. 
A  flock  of  sheep  was  grazing  on  the  side  of  a  hill ;  they  were 
attended  by  a  shepherd  and  a  brace  of  prick-eared  dogs, 
which  kept  them  from  straying,  as  was  done  thousands  of 
years  ago.  Speckled  birds  were  hopping  by  the  sides  of  the 
road  :  it  was  the  magpie,  the  bird  of  ancient  fable.  Flocks  of 
what  I  at  first  took  for  the  crow  of  our  country  were  stalking 
in  the  fields,  or  sailing  in  the  air  over  the  old  elms :  it  was  the 
rook,  the  bird  made  as  classical  by  Addison  as  his  cousin  the 
raven  by  the  Latin  poets. 

Then  there  were  the  old  chateaus  on  the  hills,  built  with 
an  appearance  of  military  strength,  their  towers  and  battle- 
ments telling  of  feudal  times.  The  groves  by  which  they 
were  surrounded  were  for  the  most  part  clipped  into  regular 
walls,  and  pierced  with  regularly  arched  passages,  leading  in 
various  directions,  and  the  trees  compelled  by  the  shears  to 
take  the  shape  of  obelisks  and  pyramids,  or  other  fantastic  fig- 
ures, according  to  the  taste  of  the  middle  ages.  As  we  drew 
nearer  to  Paris,  we  saw  the  plant  which  Noah  first  commit- 
ted to  the  earth  after  the  deluge — you  know  what  that  was,  I 
hope — trained  on  low  stakes,  and  growing  thickly  and  luxuri- 
antly on  the  slopes  by  the  side  of  the  highway.  Here,  too, 
was  the  tree  which  was  the  subject  of  the  first  Christian  mira- 
cle— the  fig — its  branches  heavy  with  the  bursting  fruit  just 
beginning  to  ripen  for  the  market. 

But  when  we  entered  Paris,  and  passed  the  Barriere  d'fitoile 
with  its  lofty  triumphal  arch ;  when  we  swept  through  the 
arch  of  Neuilly,  and  came  in  front  of  the  H6tel  des  Invalides, 
where  the  aged  or  maimed  soldiers,  the  living  monuments  of 
so  many  battles,  were  walking  or  sitting  under  the  elms  of  its 
broad  esplanade  ;  when  we  saw  the  colossal  statues  of  states- 
men and  warriors  frowning  from  their  pedestals  on  the  bridges 
which  bestride  the  muddy  and  narrow  channel  of  the  Seine  ; 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  85 

when  we  came  in  sight  of  the  gray  pinnacles  of  the  Tuileries, 
and  the  Gothic  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  and  the  Roman  ones 
of  St.  Sulpice,  and  the  dome  of  the  Pantheon,  under  which 
lie  the  remains  of  so  many  of  the  great  men  of  France,  and 
the  dark  column  of  Place  Vendome,  wrought  with  figures  in 
relief,  and  the  obelisk  brought  from  Egypt  to  ornament  the 
Place  Louis  Quatorze — the  associations  with  antiquity  which 
the  country  presents,  from  being  general,  became  particular 
and  historical.  They  were  recollections  of  power  and  mag- 
nificence and  extended  empire ;  of  valor  and  skill  -in  war 
which  had  held  the  world  in  fear ;  of  dynasties  that  had  risen 
and  passed  away ;  of  battles  and  victories  which  had  left  no 
other  fruits  than  their  monuments. 

A  DAY  IN  FLORENCE. — SEPTEMBER  27,  1834:  I  have  now 
been  in  this  city  a  fortnight,  and  have  established  myself  in  a 
suite  of  apartments  lately  occupied,  as  the  landlord  told  me, 
in  hopes,  I  presume,  of  getting  a  higher  rent,  by  a  Russian 
prince.  The  Arno  flows,  or  rather  stands  still,  under  my  win- 
dows, for  the  water  is  low,  and  near  the  western  wall  of  the 
city  is  frugally  dammed  up  to  preserve  it  for  the  public  baths. 
Beyond,  this  stream,  so  renowned  in  history  and  poetry,  is  at 
this  season  but  a  feeble  rill,  almost  lost  among  the  pebbles  of 
its  bed,  and  scarcely  sufficing  to  give  drink  to  the  pheasants 
and  hares  of  the  Grand  Duke's  cascine  on  its  banks.  Oppo- 
site my  lodgings,  at  the  south  end  of  the  Ponte  alia  Carraia,  is  a 
little  oratory,  before  the  door  of  which  every  good  Catholic 
who  passes  takes  off  his  hat  with  a  gesture  of  homage  :  and  at 
this  moment  a  swarthy,  weasel-faced  man,  with  a  tin  box  in 
his  hand,  is  gathering  contributions  to  pay  for  the  services  of 
the  chapel,  rattling  his  coin  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  pe- 
destrians, and  calling  out  to  those  who  seem  disposed  to  pass 
without  paying.  To  the  north  and  west  the  peaks  of  the  Ap- 
ennines are  in  full  sight,  rising  over  the  spires  of  the  city  and 
the  groves  of  the  cascine.  Every  evening  I  see  them  through 
the  soft,  delicately  colored  haze  of  an  Italian  sunset,  looking 
as  if  they  had  caught  something  of  the  transparency  of  the 


86  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

sky,  and  appearing  like  mountains  of  fairy-land,  instead  of  the 
bleak  and  barren  ridges  of  rock  which  they  really  are.  The 
weather  since  my  arrival  in  Tuscany  has  been  continually  se- 
rene, the  sky  wholly  cloudless,  and  the  temperature  uniform 
— oppressively  warm  in  the  streets  at  noon,  delightful  at  morn- 
ing and  evening,  with  a  long,  beautiful,  golden  twilight,  occa- 
sioned by  the  reflection  of  light  from  the  orange-colored  haze 
which  invests  the  atmosphere.  Every  night  I  am  reminded 
that  I  am  in  the  land  of  song,  for  until  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  I  hear  "  all  manner  of  tunes  "  chanted  by  people  in 
the  streets  in  all  manner  of  voices. 

But  let  me  give  you  the  history  of  a  fine  day  in  October, 
passed  at  the  window  of  my  lodgings  on  the  Lung'  Arno,  close 
to  the  bridge  Alia  Carraja.  Waked  by  the  jangling  of  all  the 
bells  in  Florence,  and  by  the  noise  of  carriages  departing, 
loaded  with  travellers,  for  Rome  and  other  places  in  the  south 
of  Italy,  I  rise,  dress  myself,  and  take  my  place  at  the  window. 
I  see  crowds  of  men  and  women  from  the  country,  the  former 
in  brown  velvet  jackets,  and  the  latter  in  broad  -  brimmed 
straw  hats,  driving  donkeys  loaded  with  panniers,  or  trundling 
hand-carts  before  them,  heaped  with  grapes,  figs,  and  all  the 
fruits  of  the  orchard,  the  garden,  and  the  field.  They  have 
hardly  passed  when  large  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  make 
their  appearance,  attended  by  shepherds  and  their  families, 
driven  by  the  approach  of  winter  from  the  Apennines,  and 
seeking  the  pastures  of  the  Maremma,  a  rich,  but,  in  the  sum- 
mer, an  unhealthy  tract  on  the  coast.  The  men  and  boys  are 
dressed  in  knee-breeches,  the  women  in  bodices,  and  both 
sexes  wear  capotes  with  pointed  hoods,  and  felt  hats  with  coni- 
cal crowns ;  they  carry  long  staves  in  their  hands,  and  their 
arms  are  loaded  with  kids  and  lambs  too  young  to  keep  pace 
with  their  mothers.  After  the  long  procession  of  sheep  and 
goats  and  dogs,  and  men  and  women  and  children,  come 
horses  loaded  with  cloths  and  poles  for  tents,  kitchen  utensils, 
and  the  rest  of  the  younglings  of  the  flock.  A  little  after  sun- 
rise I  see  well-fed  donkeys,  in  coverings  of  red  cloth,  driven 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  8/ 

over  the  bridge,  to  be  milked  for  invalids.  Maid-servants, 
bareheaded,  with  huge,  high-carved  combs  in  their  hair ;  wait- 
ers of  coffee-houses  carrying  the  morning  cup  of  coffee  or 
chocolate  to  their  customers ;  bakers'  boys  with  a  dozen  loaves 
on  a  board  balanced  on  their  heads ;  milkmen  with  rush  bas- 
kets filled  with  flasks  of  milk — are  crossing  the  streets  in  all 
directions.  A  little  later  the  bell  of  the  small  chapel  opposite 
my  window  rings  furiously  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then 
I  hear  mass  chanted  in  a  deep,  strong,  nasal  tone.  As  the  day 
advances,  the  English,  in  white  hats  and  white  pantaloons, 
come  out  of  their  lodgings,  accompanied  sometimes  by  their 
hale  and  square-built  spouses,  and  saunter  stiffly  along  the 
Arno,  or  take  their  way  to  the  public  galleries  and  museums. 
Their  massive,  clean,  and  brightly  polished  carriages  also  be- 
gin to  rattle  through  the  streets,  setting  out  on  excursions  to 
some  part  of  the  environs  of  Florence — to  Fiesole,  to  the  Pra- 
tolino,  to  the  Bello  Sguardo,  to  the  Poggio  Imperiale.  Sights 
of  a  different  kind  now  present  themselves.  Sometimes  it  is 
a  troop  of  stout  Franciscan  friars,  in  sandals  and  brown 
robes,  each  carrying  his  staff  and  wearing  a  brown  broad- 
brimmed  hat  with  a  hemispherical  crown.  Sometimes  it  is  a 
band  of  young  theological  students,  in  purple  cassocks  with 
red  collars  and  cuffs,  let  out  on  a  holiday,  attended  by  their 
clerical  instructors,  to  ramble  in  the  caserne.  There  is  a  priest 
coming  over  the  bridge,  a  man  of  venerable  age  and  great 
reputation  for  sanctity  ;  the  common  people  crowd  around 
him  to  kiss  his  hand,  and  obtain  a  kind  word  from  him  as  he 
passes.  But  what  is  that  procession  of  men  in  black  gowns, 
black  gaiters,  and  black  masks,  moving  swiftly  along,  and 
bearing  on  their  shoulders  a  litter  covered  with  black  cloth  ? 
These  are  the  Brethren  of  Mercy,  who  have  assembled  at  the 
sound  of  the  cathedral  bell,  and  are  conveying  some  sick 
or  wounded  person  to  the  hospital.  As  the  day  begins  to 
decline,  the  numbers  of  carriages  in  the  streets,  filled 
with  gayly-dressed  people  attended  by  servants  in  livery,  in- 
creases. The  Grand  Duke's  equipage,  an  elegant  carriage 


88  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

drawn  by  six  horses,  with  coachmen,  footmen,  and  outriders  in 
drab-colored  livery,  comes  from  the  Pitti  Palace  and  crosses 
the  Arno,  either  by  the  bridge  close  to  my  lodgings,  or  by 
that  called  Alia  Santa  Trinita,  which  is  in  full  sight  from  the 
windows.  The  Florentine  nobility,  with  their  families,  and 
the  English  residents,  now  throng  to  the  casting  to  drive  at  a 
slow  pace  through  its  thickly-planted  walks  of  elms,  oaks,  and 
ilexes.  As  the  sun  is  sinking  I  perceive  the  quay,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Arno,  filled  with  a  moving  crowd  of  well- 
dressed  people,  walking  to  and  fro,  and  enjoying  the  beauty  of 
the  evening.  Travellers  now  arrive  from  all  quarters,  in  ca- 
briolets, in  calashes,  in  the  shabby  vettura,  and  in  the  elegant 
private  carriage  drawn  by  post-horses,  and  driven  by  postil- 
ions in  the  tightest  possible  deer-skin  breeches,  the  smallest 
red  coats,  and  the  hugest  jack-boots.  The  streets  about  the 
doors  of  the  hotels  resound  with  the  cracking  of  whips  and 
the  stamping  of  horses,  and  are  encumbered  with  carriages, 
heaps  of  baggage,  porters,  postilions,  couriers,  and  travellers. 
Night  at  length  arrives — the  time  of  spectacles  and  funerals. 
The  carriages  rattle  toward  the  opera-houses.  Trains  of 
people,  sometimes  in  white  robes  and  sometimes  in  black, 
carrying  blazing  torches  and  a  cross  elevated  on  a  high 
pole  before  a  coffin,  pass  through  the  streets  chanting  the  ser- 
vice for  the  dead.  The  Brethren  of  Mercy  may  also  be  seen 
engaged  in  their  office.  The  rapidity  of  their  pace,  the  flare 
of  their  torches,  the  gleam  of  their  eyes  through  their  masks, 
and  their  sable  garb,  give  them  a  kind  of  supernatural  appear- 
ance. I  return  to  bed,  and  fall  asleep  amid  the  shouts  of 
people  returning  from  the  opera,  singing,  as  they  go,  snatches 
of  the  music  with  which  they  had  been  entertained  during  the 
evening. 

PISA  AND  THE  PISANS.— DECEMBER,  1834:  Pisa  offers  a 
greater  contrast  to  Florence  than  I  had  imagined  could  exist 
between  two  Italian  cities.  This  is  the  very  seat  of  idleness 
and  slumber,  while  Florence,  from  being  the  residence  of  the 
Court,  and  from  the  vast  number  of  foreigners  who  throng  to 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  89 

it,  presents  during  several  months  of  the  year  an  appearance 
of  great  bustle  and  animation.  Four  thousand  English,  an 
American  friend  tells  me,  visit  Florence  every  winter,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  occasional  residents  from  France,  Germany,  and 
Russia.  The  number  of  visitors  from  the  latter  country  is 
every  year  increasing,  and  the  echoes  of  the  Florence  gallery 
have  been  taught  to  repeat  the  strange  accents  of  the  Scla- 
vonic tongue.  But  in  Pisa  all  is  stagnation  and  repose ;  even 
the  presence  of  the  sovereign,  who  really  passes  a  part  of  the 
winter  here,  is  unable  to  give  a  momentary  liveliness  to  the 
place.  It  is  nearly  as  large  as  Florence,  with  not  one  third  of 
the  population.  The  number  of  strangers  is  few  ;  most  of  them 
are  invalids,  and  the  rest  are  the  quietest  people  in  the  world. 
The  rattle  of  carriages  is  rarely  heard  in  the  streets,  in  some 
of  which  there  reigns  a  stillness  so  complete  that  you  might 
imagine  them  deserted.  Pisa  has  a  delightful  winter  climate, 
though  Madame  de  Stael  has  left  on  record  a  condemnation  of 
it,  having  passed  here  a  season  of  unusually  bad  weather. 
Orange-  and  lemon-trees  grow  in  the  open  air,  and  are  now 
loaded  with  ripe  fruit.  The  fields  in  the  environs  are  green 
with  grass  nourished  by  abundant  rains,  and  are  spotted  with 
daisies  in  blossom.  Crops  of  flax  and  various  kinds  of  pulse 
are  showing  themselves  above  the  ground,  a  circumstance  suf- 
ficient to  show  that  the  cultivators  expect  nothing  like  what 
we  call  winter. 

We  have  now  been  more  than  three  months  in  Pisa,  where 
we  have  obtained  very  comfortable  and  pleasant  lodgings, 
looking  immediately  on  the  Arno.  I  had  letters  to  two  of  the 
professors  of  the  university  here,  both  of  whom  received  me 
with  great  civility.  One  of  them,  Biancini,  professor  of  anato- 
my, whose  anatomical  preparations  have  great  fame  in  the 
United  States,  and  who  has  been  employed  to  make  them  for 
the  Medical  School  in  Charleston,  and  I  believe  one  or  two 
other  institutions  in  our  country,  was  so  ill  that  he  could  do 
nothing  for  me.  The  other,  Rossini,  author  of  several  ro- 
mances and  poems,  has  been  very  attentive  and  given  me  an 


90  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

opportunity  of  seeing  a  little  of  Pisan  society.  He  took  me 
to  several  conversazioni,  where  the  ladies  and  gentlemen 
amuse  themselves  with  playing  cards  and  divers  other  games. 
The  Pisan  ladies  are  not  handsome,  though  some  of  them  have 
rather  a  fine  presence.  In  latitude  of  person  they  exceed  the 
ladies  of  our  own  country  by  about  one  third ;  indeed,  both 
sexes  are  considerably  stouter  than  with  us.  I  am  sorry  to 
say  the  practice  of  cicisbeism  is  very  common.  Most  of  the 
ladies  among  the  nobility  who  are  in  opulent  circumstances 
keep  their  cavalier  servente  in  the  same  house  with  their  good- 
natured  husband.  Often  the  person  acting  in  this  capacity  is 
a  young  man  of  plebeian  extraction,  whom  you  will  remark 
as  the  constant  attendant  of  some  elderly  lady,  driving  out 
with  her  in  her  carriage,  sitting  with  her  at  her  box  at  the 
opera,  and  carrying  about  her  shawl  and  tippet  at  a  ball. 
All  this,  however,  is  scandal — though,  upon  second  thought,  it 
is  no  scandal  here  ;  yet,  as  it  is  scandal  in  America,  I  beg  you 
will  let  it  go  no  further.  I  would  not  have  you  mention 
either,  from  me,  that  the  Tuscan  nobility  are  poor  and  hor- 
ribly in  debt,  and  that,  though  they  contrive  to  dress  richly 
when  abroad,  to  keep  carriages  and  maintain  a  few  servants  in 
livery,  they  live  in  all  other  respects  with  great  parsimony. 
With  a  few  exceptions,  they  give  no  entertainments.  Here,  in 
Pisa,  at  the  houses  of  Franceschini,  the  gonfalonier  of  the  city, 
of  the  Countess  Mastiani,  and  one  or  two  others,  conversazioni 
are  held,  and  now  and  then  a  ball  given ;  the  rest  of  the  no- 
bility are  simply  content  with  morning  calls  and  with  seeing 
each  other  at  the  theatres  or  on  the  Lung'  Arno,  where  they 
promenade  a  little  before  sunset.  The  present  winter  has 
been  uncommonly  gay  in  Pisa.  The  Grand  Duke  is  passing 
the  winter  here,  which  he  does  once  in  three  years  ;  of  course, 
balls  have  been  given  at  the  palace,  and  several  in  return  have 
been  given  to  the  Court.  The  most  brilliant  of  these  was  one 
at  the  Countess  Mastiani's,  at  which  were  present  many  per- 
sons from  Florence  and  Leghorn,  and  several  belonging  to  the 
Court  at  Lucca. 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  91 

All  the  Pisan  nobility  attended,  and  some  of  the  richest 
commoners ;  and  between  the  two  classes  there  was  a  studied 

rivalry  in  splendor  of  dress.  We  took  F ,  who  is  as  tall 

as  her  mother,  to  the  ball ;  the  creature  was  half  beside  herself 
at  the  honor  of  figuring  in  a  waltz  at  the  same  time  that  the 
Grand  Duke  was  dancing  with  an  Italian  lady.  Before  we  left 
Florence  we  had  been  presented  at  Court.  Both  there  and 
here  the  Grand  Duke's  balls  have  been  crowded  with  English 
— the  omnipresent  English — the  universal  English  nation — bet- 
ter entitled  to  that  epithet  than  the  Yankees,  for  the  whole 
continent  of  Europe  is  overrun  with  them.  They  are  gener- 
ally much  the  same  conceited,  dissatisfied  beings  here  that  we 
find  them  in  America. 

The  carnival  began  a  week  or  two  since,  and  last  Sunday 
the  streets  were  full  of  carriages,  and  people  in  masks,  passing 
up  and  down  and  playing  all  sorts  of  fooleries.  The  Lung' 
Arno,  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  a  noble  street,  stretching 
in  a  semicircle  from  one  end  of  the  city  to  the  other,  is  the 
principal  scene  of  this  diversion.  Our  lodgings  are  situated 
near  the  centre  of  the  concavity  of  this  semicircle,  so  that  we 
have  a  good  view  of  what  is  going  on  in  it  from  one  extremity 
to  the  other.  Crowds  of  men  and  women  from  the  country 
came  to  witness  the  frolic,  the  women  wearing  white  hand- 
kerchiefs on  their  heads,  pinned  over  combs,  with  huge  flat, 
gilt  pendants  in  their  ears,  resting  on  their  shoulders,  and 
broad  crosses  of  a  similar  fashion  hanging  from  the  neck  over 
the  bosom.  The  maskers  appeared  to  be  mostly  of  the  fair 

sex.  J was  at  the  open  window — for  the  mildness  of  the 

climate  is  such  that  an  open  window  in  February  is  no  great 
inconvenience — laughing  with  all  her  might  at  the  strange  fig- 
ures below. 

A  DESOLATE  REGION. — APRIL  15,1835:  Toward  the  end 
of  March  I  went  from  Pisa  to  Volterra.  This,  you  know,  is  a 
very  ancient  city,  one  of  the  strongholds  of  Etruria  when 
Rome  was  in  its  cradle ;  and,  in  more  modern  times,  in  the 
age  of  Italian  republics,  large  enough  to  form  an  independent 

VOL.   II.— 7 


92  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

community  of  considerable  importance.  It  is  now  a  decayed 
town,  containing  about  four  thousand  inhabitants,  some  of 
whom  are  families  of  the  poor  and  proud  nobility  common 
enough  over  all  Italy,  who  are  said  to  quarrel  with  each  other 
more  fiercely  in  Volterra  than  almost  anywhere  else.  It  is  the 
old  feud  of  the  Montagues  and  the  Capulets  on  a  humbler 
scale,  and  the  disputes  of  the  Volterra  nobility  are  the  more 
violent  and  implacable  for  being  hereditary.  Poor  creatures ! 
too  proud  to  engage  in  business,  too  indolent  for  literature, 
excluded  from  political  employments  by  the  nature  of  the 
government,  there  is  nothing  left  for  them  but  to  starve,  in- 
trigue, and  quarrel.  You  may  judge  how  miserably  poor  they 
are  when  you  are  told  that  they  cannot  afford  even  to  culti- 
vate the  favorite  art  of  modern  Italy — the  art  best  suited  to 
the  genius  of  a  soft  and  effeminate  people.  There  is,  I  was 
told,  but  one  piano-forte  in  the  whole  town,  and  that  is  owned 
by  a  Florentine  lady  who  has  recently  come  to  reside  here. 

For  several  miles  before  reaching  Volterra  our  attention 
was  fixed  by  the  extraordinary  aspect  of  the  country  through 
which  we  were  passing.  The  road  gradually  ascended,  and 
we  found  ourselves  among  deep  ravines  and  steep,  high, 
broken  banks,  principally  of  clay,  barren,  and  in  most  places 
wholly  bare  of  herbage — a  scene  of  complete  desolation  were 
it  not  for  a  cottage  here  and  there  perched  upon  the  heights, 
a  few  sheep,  attended  by  a  boy  and  a  dog,  grazing  on  the  brink 
of  one  of  the  precipices,  or  a  solitary  patch  of  bright  green 
wheat  in  some  spot  where  the  rains  had  not  yet  carried  away 
the  vegetable  mould.  Imagine  to  yourself  an  elevated  coun- 
try like  the  highlands  of  Pennsylvania,  or  the  western  part  of 
Massachusetts ;  imagine  vast  beds  of  loam  and  clay  in  place  of 
the  ledges  of  rock,  and  then  fancy  the  whole  region  to  be  torn 
by  water-spouts  and  torrents  into  gulleys  too  profound  to  be 
passed,  with  sharp  ridges  between — stripped  of  its  trees  and 
its  grass — and  you  will  have  some  idea  of  the  country  near 
Volterra.  I  could  not  help  fancying,  while  I  looked  at  it,  that 
as  the  earth  grew  old,  the  ribs  of  rock  which  once  upheld  the 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE. 


93 


mountains  had  become  changed  into  the  bare  heaps  of  earth 
which  I  saw  about  me,  that  time  and  the  elements  had  de- 
stroyed the  cohesion  of  the  particles  of  which  they  were 
formed,  and  that  now  the  rains  were  sweeping  them  down  to 
the  Mediterranean,  to  fill  its  bed  and  cause  its  waters  to  en- 
croach upon  the  land — it  was  impossible  for  me  to  prevent 
the  apprehension  from  passing  through  my  mind  that  such 
might  be  the  fate  of  other  quarters  of  the  globe  in  ages  yet 
to  come ;  that  their  rocks  must  crumble  and  their  mountains 
be  levelled  until  the  waters  shall  again  cover  the  face  of  the 
earth,  unless  new  mountains  shall  be  thrown  up  by  eruptions 
of  internal  fire.  They  told  me  in  Volterra  that  this  frightful 
region  had  once  been  productive  and  under  cultivation,  but 
that  after  a  plague,  which,  four  or  five  hundred  years  since, 
had  depopulated  the  country,  it  was  abandoned  and  neglected, 
and  the  rains  had  reduced  it  to  its  present  state. 

In  the  midst  of  this  desolate  tract,  w*hich  is,  however,  here 
and  there  interspersed  with  fertile  spots,  rises  the  mountain  on 
which  Volterra  is  situated,  where  the  inhabitants  breathe  a 
pure  and  keen  atmosphere,  almost  perpetually  cool,  and  only 
die  of  pleurisies  and  apoplexies  ;  while  below,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Cecina,  which  in  full  sight  winds  its  way  to  the  sea,  they 
die  of  fevers.  One  of  the  ravines  of  which  I  have  spoken — the 
balza  they  call  it  at  Volterra — has  ploughed  a  deep  chasm  on 
the  north  side  of  this  mountain,  and  is  every  year  rapidly  ap- 
proaching the  city  on  its  summit.  I  stood  on  its  edge  and 
looked  down  a  bank  of  soft  red  earth  five  hundred  feet  in 
height.  A  few  rods  in  front  of  me  I  saw  where  a  road  had 
crossed  the  spot  in  which  the  gulf  now  yawned  ;  the  tracks 
of  the  last  year's  carriages  were  seen  reaching  to  the  edge  on 
both  sides.  The  ruins  of  a  convent  were  close  at  hand,  the 
inmates  of  which,  two  or  three  years  since,  had  been  removed 
by  the  government  to  the  town  for  safety.  These  will  soon 
be  undermined  by  the  advancing  chasm,  together  with  a  fine 
piece  of  old  Etruscan  wall,  once  enclosing  the  city,  built  of 
enormous  uncemented  parallelograms  of  stone,  and  looking  as  if 


94 


SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 


it  might  be  the  work  of  the  giants  who  lived  before  the  flood  ; 
a  neighboring  church  will  next  fall  into  the  gulf,  which  finally, 
if  means  be  not  taken  to  prevent  its  progress,  will  reach  and 
sap  the  present  walls  of  the  city,  swallowing  up  what  time  has 
so  long  spared.  "  A  few  hundred  crowns,"  said  an  inhabitant 
of  Volterra  to  me,  "  would  stop  all  this  mischief.  A  wall  at 
the  bottom  of  the  chasm,  and  a  heap  of  branches  of  trees  or 
other  rubbish,  to  check  the  fall  of  the  earth,  are  all  that  would 
be  necessary."  I  asked  why  these  means  were  not  used. 
"  Because,"  he  replied,  "  those  to  whom  the  charge  of  these 
matters  belongs  will  not  take  the  trouble.  Somebody  must 
devise  a  plan  for  the  purpose,  and  somebody  must  take  upon 
himself  the  labor  of  seeing  it  executed.  They  find  it  easier 
to  put  it  off." 

The  antiquities  of  Volterra  consist  of  an  Etruscan  burial- 
ground,  in  which  the  tombs  still  remain ;  pieces  of  the  old  and 
incredibly  massive  Etruscan  wall,  including  a  far  larger  circuit 
than  the  present  city ;  two  Etruscan  gates  of  immemorial  an- 
tiquity, older,  doubtless,  than  anything  at  Rome,  built  of  enor- 
mous stones,  one  of  them  serving  even  yet  as  an  entrance  to 
the  town ;  and  a  multitude  of  cinerary  vessels,  mostly  of  ala- 
baster, sculptured  with  numerous  figures  in  alto  relievo.  These 
figures  are  sometimes  allegorical  representations,  and  some- 
times embody  the  fables  of  the  Greek  mythology.  Among 
them  are  some  in  the  most  perfect  style  of  Grecian  art,  the 
subjects  of  which  are  taken  from  the  poems  of  Homer ;  groups 
representing  the  besiegers  of  Troy  and  its  defenders,  or  Ulys- 
ses with  his  companions  and  his  ships.  I  gazed  with  exceed- 
ing delight  on  these  works  of  forgotten  artists,  who  had  the 
verses  of  Homer  by  heart — works  just  drawn  from  the  tombs 
where  they  had  been  buried  for  thousands  of  years,  and  look- 
ing as  if  fresh  from  the  chisel. 

We  had  letters  to  the  commandant  of  the  fortress,  an 
ancient-looking  stronghold,  built  by  the  Medici  family,  over 
which  we  were  conducted  by  his  adjutant,  a  courteous  gen- 
tleman with  a  red  nose,  who  walked  as  if  keeping  time  to 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  95 

military  music.  From  the  summit  of  the  tower  we  had  an 
extensive  and  most  remarkable  prospect.  It  was  the  I9th  day 
of  March,  and  below  us  the  sides  of  the  mountain,  scooped 
into  irregular  dells,  were  covered  with  fruit-trees  just  breaking 
into  leaf  and  flower.  Beyond  stretched  the  region  of  barren- 
ness I  have  already  described,  to  the  west  of  which  lay  the 
green  pastures  of  the  Maremma,  the  air  of  which,  in  summer, 
is  deadly,  and  still  farther  west  were  spread  the  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean,  out  of  which  were  seen  rising  the  mountains 
of  Corsica.  To  the  north  and  northeast  were  the  Apennines, 
capped  with  snow,  embosoming  the  fertile  lower  valley  of  the 
Arno,  with  the  cities  of  Pisa  and  Leghorn  in  sight.  To  the 
south  we  traced  the  windings  of  the  Cecina,  and  saw  ascend- 
ing into  the  air  the  smoke  of  a  hot-water  lake,  agitated  per- 
petually with  the  escape  of  gas,  which  we  were  told  was  vis- 
ited by  Dante,  and  from  which  he  drew  images  for  his  descrip- 
tion of  Hell.  Some  Frenchman  has  now  converted  it  into  a 
borax  manufactory,  the  natural  heat  of  the  water  serving  to 
extract  the  salt.  The  fortress  is  used  as  a  prison  for  persons 
guilty  of  offences  against  the  state.  On  the  top  of  the  tower 
we  passed  four  prisoners  of  state,  well-dressed  young  men, 
who  appeared  to  have  been  entertaining  themselves  with  mu- 
sic, having  guitars  and  other  instruments  in  their  hands.  They 
saluted  the  adjutant  as  he  went  by  them,  who,  in  return,  took 
off  his  hat.  They  had  been  condemned  for  a  conspiracy 
against  the  government. 

The  commandant  gave  us  a  hospitable  reception.  In  show- 
ing us  the  fortress  he  congratulated  us  that  we  had  no  occa- 
sion for  such  engines  of  government  in  America.  We  went  to 
his  house  in  the  evening,  where  we  saw  his  wife,  a  handsome 
young  lady,  whom  he  had  lately  brought  from  Florence,  the 
very  lady  of  the  piano-forte  whom  I  have  already  mentioned, 
and  the  mother  of  two  young  children,  whose  ruddy  cheeks 
and  chubby  figures  did  credit  to  the  wholesome  air  of  Vol- 
terra.  The  commandant. made  tea  for  us  in  tumblers,  and  the 
lady  gave  us  music.  The  tea  was  so  strong  a  decoction  that 


96  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

I  seemed  to  hear  the  music  all  night,  and  had  no  need  of  being 
waked  from  sleep  when  our  vetturino,  at  an  early  hour  the 
next  morning,  came  to  take  us  on  our  journey  to  Sienna. 

IN  AND  ABOUT  NAPLES. — JUNE,  1835  :  I  have  said  the  more 
of  Volterra  because  it  lies  rather  out  of  the  usual  course  of 
ordinary  travellers.  After  a  day  passed  in  this  place  we  pro- 
ceeded to  Sienna,  where  we  stayed  three  days ;  to  Rome,  where 
we  stayed  five  weeks ;  and  to  Naples,  where  we  stayed  three. 
Of  course  we  visited  all  the  ruins  of  Rome,  including  the 
grandest,  the  Coliseum,  went  down  into  the  Catacombs,  carry- 
ing a  wax-light  part  of  the  way,  and  seeing  everything  else 
which  travellers  must  see,  not  forgetting  St.  Peter's,  my  first 
thought  on  entering  which  was  that  it  was  as  fine  as  a  ball- 
room or  a  cabin  in  a  new  steamboat,  and  it  was  only  after 
several  visits  that  my  mind  was  opened  to  the  grandeur  and 
majesty  of  its  proportions.  Of  course,  also,  we  made  excur- 
sions to  Tivoli  and  Terni  and  Pozzuoli  and  Pompeii  and  Her- 
culaneum  and  Vesuvius.  That  last  was  an  adventure  worth 
telling  of.  We  set  out  at  midnight  on  account  of  the  heat, 
though  it  was  no  later  than  the  i/th  of  May.  For  four  miles 
or  more  before  arriving  at  the  cone  of  loose  cinders  which 
surrounds  the  crater,  we  rode  on  asses  and  ponies  up  a  rugged 
winding  road,  attended  by  a  dozen  torch-bearers  and  guides. 
Two  American  gentlemen  accompanied  us.  It  was  quite  a 
grand  affair :  there  was  the  darkness,  the  flare  of  the  torches, 
the  rocks  of  ancient  lava,  the  black  craggy  trains  of  the  lava 
of  last  year,  the  hollow  path,  the  flapping  of  the  branches 
of  the  wild  fig-trees  in  our  faces  as  we  passed,  and  the  half- 
savage  looks  and  strange  gibberish  of  the  guides.  We  stopped 
to  rest  at  the  Hermitage,  a  house  surrounded  by  vineyards 
just  on  the  edge  of  the  streams  of  lava  poured  forth  in  the 
last  eruption,  and  occupied  by  a  friar  of  some  sort  or  other. 
Half  an  hour's  farther  riding  brought  us  to  the  cone,  and  we 
climbed  up  its  almost  perpendicular  sides  with  extreme  toil, 
wading  in  the  volcanic  gravel  mixed  with  craggy  fragments 
of  lava.  My  wife  and  daughter  were  fairly  dragged  up  by  the 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  97 

guides.  Of  course  we  were  out  of  breath  when  we  arrived  at 
the  summit,  just  as  the  sun  was  rising.  We  now  stood  on  the 
edge  of  a  vast  hollow,  within  which  extended  a  black  crust  of 
irregular  surface  intersected  with  fissures  which  sent  up  an 
acrid  vapor  and  insupportable  heat.  Our  station  was  on  the 
north  side  of  the  crater,  where  the  surface  for  a  considerable 
distance  was  tolerably  level.  South  of  this  little  plain  sank  a 
deep  black  valley,  at  the  farther  side  of  which  was  a  profound 
opening,  sending  up  continually  huge  volumes  of  reddish- 
looking  smoke,  which  rolled  over  each  other  down  the  moun- 
tain, in  a  direction  opposite  to  that  in  which  we  stood.  The 
edges  of  the  crater,  except  where  we  came  upon  it,  were  high, 
sharp,  steep,  and  broken,  as  if  the  summit  of  the  mountain  had 
suddenly  fallen  into  the  gulf  below.  Nothing  could  be  more 
beautiful  than  the  green  and  yellow  hues  on  the  western  edge ; 
it  looked  for  all  the  world  like  a  bank  of  green  grass  and  butter- 
cups. One  of  the  party  asked  what  were  the  flowers  which 
made  so  gay  an  appearance.  I  told  him  they  were  only  flowers 
of  sulphur,  which  was  the  literal  fact,  for  it  was  the  sublimated 
sulphur,  deposited  on  the  crags  of  lava,  which  gave  them  this 
brilliant  coloring.  Our  cicerone  told  us  alarming  stories  of  the 
occasional  sinking  of  the  crust  of  the  crater  on  which  we  stood 
— how  the  frightful  opening  which  sent  forth  the  smoke 
shifted  from  one  side  to  the  other,  and  mountains  swelled  up 
within  the  crater  at  one  time,  and  were  suddenly  engulfed  at 
another — and  talked  of  the  symptoms  of  an  approaching  erup- 
tion— whether  from  a  desire  to  impart  information,  or  because 
he  wanted  to  go  home  for  his  breakfast,  I  could  not  judge.  I 
will  not  undertake  to  describe  what  has  been  described  so 
often — the  glorious  prospect  beheld  from  the  summit  of  the 
volcano ;  the  bright  blue  Mediterranean  with  its  dark  shores 
of  rocky  mountains ;  the  ancient  Parthenope,  burial-place  of 
Virgil,  sitting  proudly  on  the  slope  of  her  hills ;  Pompeii,  Her- 
culaneum,  Baias ;  the  towering  islands  of  Capri,  Procida,  and 
Ischia,  the  heights  gilded  and  the  waters,  shining  in  the  morn- 
ing sun.  We  shot  to  the  bottom  of  the  cone  in  ten  minutes ; 


98  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

my  wife  and  daughter  gave  their  boots,  which  were  reduced 
to  a  most  rueful  plight,  to  the  guides,  who  pocketed  them 
with  thanks ;  we  arrived  at  Naples  about  ten  in  the  morning, 
and  deliberately  went  to  bed.  I  have  only  room  to  tell  you 
further  that  Naples  is  populous,  lively,  as  noisy  as  New  York, 
and  inexpressibly  dirty ;  that  whoever  visits  either  that  place 
or  Rome  must  pay  his  account  in  being  eaten  up  alive  by 
fleas ;  that  the  farther  you  go  south  from  Tuscany  the  greater 
cheats  you  find  the  people  ;  and  that  half  at  least  of  the  pleas- 
ure you  take  in  looking  at  objects  of  curiosity  is  counterbal- 
anced by  being  plagued  by  swarms  of  beggars,  ragamuffins, 
and  rogues  of  all  sorts,  who  come  upon  you  at  every  turn  and 
keep  a  perpetual  din  in  your  ears.  The  scenery  of  the  Bay 
of  Naples  is  among  the  most  stupendously  picturesque  I 
ever  looked  at,  but  the  lazzaroni,  I  confess,  disappointed  me. 
They  looked  altogether  too  decent,  too  comfortable,  too 
well  clad ;  they  were  not  half  so  naked  nor  half  so  queer  as 
I  had  been  taught  to  expect.  I  had  seen  quite  as  shabby- 
looking  men  and  women  in  other  parts  of  Italy.  We  were, 
however,  much  amused  with  Naples,  and  our  stay  there  was 
rendered  more  agreeable  by  the  pleasant  situation  of  our 
apartment,  looking  on  the  bay  and  the  beautiful  public  walk 
called  the  Chiaja. 

THE  SHETLAND  ISLANDS.— JULY  19,  1849:  From  Wick,  a 
considerable  fishing  town  in  Caithness,  on  the  northern  coast 
of  Scotland,  a  steamer,  named  the  Queen,  departs  once  a 
week,  in  the  summer  months,  for  Kirkwall,  in  the  Orkneys, 
and  Lerwick,  in  Shetland.  We  went  on  board  of  her  about 
ten  o'clock  on  the  I4th  of  July.  The  herring  fishery  had  just 
begun,  and  the  artificial  port  of  Wick,  constructed  with  mas- 
sive walls  of  stone,  was  crowded  with  fishing  vessels  which 
had  returned  that  morning  from  the  labors  of  the  night ;  for 
in  the  herring  fishery  it  is  only  in  the  night  that  the  nets  are 
spread  and  drawn.  Many  of  the  vessels  had  landed  their  car- 
go ;  in  others  the  fishermen  were  busily  disengaging  the  her- 
rings from  the  black  nets  and  throwing  them  in  eahps ;  and 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE. 


99 


now  and  then  a  boat,  later  than  the  rest,  was  entering  from  the 
sea.  The  green  heights  all  around  the  bay  were  covered  with 
groups  of  women,  sitting  or  walking,  dressed  for  the  most 
part  in  caps  and  white,  short  gowns,  waiting  for  the  arrival  of 
the  boats  manned  by  their  husbands  and  brothers,  or  belong- 
ing to  the  families  of  those  who  had  come  to  seek  occupation 
as  fishermen.  I  had  seen  two  or  three  of  the  principal  streets 
of  Wick  that  morning  swarming  with  strapping  fellows,  in 
blue  highland  bonnets,  with  blue  jackets  and  pantaloons,  and 
coarse  blue  flannel  shirts.  A  shopkeeper,  standing  at  his  door, 
instructed  me  who  they  were.  "  They  are  men  of  the  Celtic 
race,"  he  said.  The  term  Celtic  has  grown  to  be  quite  fashion- 
able, I  find,  when  applied  to  the  Highlanders.  "  They  came 
from  the  Hebrides  and  other  parts  of  western  Scotland  to  get 
employment  in  the  herring  fishery.  These  people  have  trav- 
elled perhaps  three  hundred  miles,  most  of  them  on  foot,  to  be 
employed  six  or  seven  weeks,  for  which  they  will  receive 
about  six  pounds  wages.  Those  whom  you  see  are  not  the 
best  of  their  class ;  the  more  enterprising  and  industrious  have 
boats  of  their  own,  and  carry  on  the  fishery  on  their  own  ac- 
count." 

We  found  the  Queen  a  strong  steamboat,  with  a  good 
cabin  and  convenient  state-rooms,  but  dirty,  and  smelling  of 
fish  from  stem  to  stern.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  farther 
north  I  went  the  more  dirt  I  found.  Our  captain  was  an  old 
Aberdeen  seaman,  with  a  stoop  in  his  shoulders,  and  looked  as 
if  he  was  continually  watching  for  land,  an  occupation  for 
which  the  foggy  climate  of  these  latitudes  gives  him  full  scope. 
We  left  Wick  between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  in  the  fore- 
noon, and  glided  over  a  calm  sea,  with  a  cloudless  sky  above 
us,  and  a  thin  haze  on  the  surface  of  the  waters.  The  haze 
thickened  to  a  fog,  which  grew  more  and  more  dense,  and 
finally  closed  overhead.  After  about  three  hours'  sail,  the  cap- 
tain began  to  grow  uneasy,  and  was  seen  walking  about  on  the 
bridge  between  the  wheel-houses,  anxiously  peering  into  the 
mist,  on  the  lookout  for  the  coast  of  the  Orkneys.  At  length 


100  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

he  gave  up  the  search  and  stopped  the  engine.  The  passen- 
gers amused  themselves  with  fishing.  Several  coal-fish,  a 
large  fish  of  slender  shape,  were  caught,  and  one  fine  cod  was 
hauled  up  by  a  gentleman  who  united  in  his  person,  as  he  gave 
me  to  understand,  the  two  capacities  of  portrait-painter  and 
preacher  of  the  Gospel,  and  who  held  that  the  universal 
Church  of  Christendom  had  gone  sadly  astray  from  the  true 
primitive  doctrine  in  regard  to  the  time  when  the  millennium 
is  to  take  place. 

The  fog  cleared  away  in  the  evening;  our  steamer  was 
again  in  motion  ;  we  landed  at  Kirkwall  in  the  middle  of  the 
night ;  and  when  I  went  on  deck  the  next  morning  we  were 
smoothly  passing  the  shores  of  Fair  Isle — high  and  steep 
rocks  impending  over  the  waters,  with  a  covering  of  green 
turf.  Before  they  were  out  of  sight  we  saw  the  Shetland 
coast,  the  dark  rock  of  Sumburgh  Head,  and  behind  it,  half 
shrouded  in  mist,  the  promontory  of  Fitfiel  Head — Fitful 
Head,  as  it  is  called  by  Scott  in  his  novel  of  "  The  Pirate."  Be- 
yond, to  the  east,  black,  rocky  promontories  came  in  sight,  one 
after  the  other,  beetling  over  the  sea.  At  ten  o'clock  we  were 
passing  through  a  channel,  between  the  islands,  leading  to  Ler- 
wick,  the  capital  of  Shetland,  on  the  principal  island,  bearing 
the  name  of  Mainland.  Fields,  yellow  with  flowers,  among 
which  stood  here  and  there  a  cottage,  sloped  softly  down  to 
the  water,  and  beyond  them  rose  the  bare  declivities  and  sum- 
mits of  the  hills,  dark  with  heath,  with  here  and  there  still 
darker  spots  of  an  almost  inky  hue,  where  peat  had  been  cut 
for  fuel.  Not  a  tree,  not  a  shrub  was  to  be  seen,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  soil  appeared  never  to  have  been  reduced 
to  cultivation. 

About  one  o'clock  we  cast  anchor  before  Lerwick,  a  fishing 
village,  built  on  the  shore  of  Bressay  Sound,  which  here  forms 
one  of  the  finest  harbors  in  the  world.  It  has  two  passages  to 
the  sea,  so  that,  when  the  wind  blows  a  storm  on  one  side  of 
the  islands,  the  Shetlander  in  his  boat  passes  out  in  the  other 
direction,  and  finds  himself  in  comparatively  smooth  water. 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  IOI 

It  was  Sunday,  and  the  man  who  landed  us  at  the  quay,  and 
took  our  bag-gage  to  our  lodging,  said  as  he  left  us  :  "  It's  the 
Sabbath,  and  I'll  no  tak'  my  pay  now,  but  I'll  call  the  morrow. 
My  name  is  Jim  Sinclair,  pilot,  and  if  ye'll  be  wanting  to  go 
anywhere,  I'll  be  glad  to  tak'  ye  in  my  boat."  In  a  few  min- 
utes we  were  snugly  established  at  our  lodgings. 

The  little  town  of  Lerwick  consists  of  two-story  houses, 
built  mostly  of  unhewn  stone,  rough-cast,  with  steep  roofs,  and 
a  chimney  at  each  end.  They  are  arranged  along  a  winding 
street  parallel  with  the  shore,  and  along  narrow  lanes  running 
upward  to  the  top  of  the  hill.  The  main-street  is  flagg.cc*  with 
smooth  stones,  like  the  streets  in  Venice, -for  nQ^vebaele  runs 
on  wheels  in  the  Shetland  Islands.  We.wexitup  Queen's  Lane, 
and  soon  found  the  building  occupied  by  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland  until  a  temple  of  fairer  proportions,  on  which  the 
masons  are  now  at  work,  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  shall  be  com- 
pleted for  their  reception.  It  was  crowded  with  attentive 
worshippers,  one  of  whom  obligingly  came  forward  and  found 
a  seat  for  us.  The  minister,  Mr.  Frazer,  had  begun  the  even- 
ing service,  and  was  at  prayer.  When  I  entered  he  was  speak- 
ing of  "  our  father  the  devil" ;  but  the  prayer  was  followed  by 
an  earnest,  practical  discourse,  though  somewhat  crude  in  the 
composition,  and  reminding  me  of  an  expression  I  once  heard 
used  by  a  distinguished  Scotchman,  who  complained  that  the 
clergy  of  his  country,  in  composing  their  sermons,  too  often 
"  mak'  rough  wark  of  it." 

I  looked  about  among  these  descendants  of  the  Norwegians, 
but  could  not  see  anything  singular  in  their  physiognomy ; 
and,  but  for  the  harsh  accent  of  the  preacher,  I  might  almost 
have  thought  myself  in  the  midst  of  a  country  congregation  in 
the  United  States.  They  are  mostly  of  a  light  complexion, 
with  an  appearance  of  health  and  strength,  though  of  a  sparer 
make  than  the  people  of  the  more  southern  British  isles.  After 
the  service  was  over  we  returned  to  our  lodgings,  by  a  way 
which  led  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  made  the  circuit  of  the 
little  town.  The  paths  leading  into  the  interior  of  the  island 


102  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

were  full  of  people  returning  homeward  ;  the  women  in  their 
best  attire,  a  few  in  silks,  with  wind-tanned  faces.  We  saw 
them  disappearing,  one  after  another,  in  the  hollows,  or  over 
the  dark,  bare  hill-tops.  With  a  population  of  less  than  three 
thousand  souls,  Lerwick  has  four  places  of  worship — a  church 
of  the  Establishment,  a  Free  church,  a  church  for  the  Seced- 
ers,  and  one  for  the  Methodists.  The  road  we  took  com- 
manded a  fine  view  of  the  harbor,  surrounded  and  sheltered 
by  hills.  Within  it  lay  a  numerous  group  of  idle  fishing-ves- 
sels,-with  one  great,  steamer  in  the  midst ;  and,  more  formidable 
in  appearance,-  a  '.Dutch  man-of-war,  sent  to  protect  the  Dutch 
fisheries, ••with* -the  flag  of  Holland  flying  at  the  mast-head. 
Above  the  town,  on  -tall -poles,  were  floating  the  flags  of  four 
or  five  different  nations,  to  mark  the  habitation  of  their  con- 
suls. On  the  side  opposite  to  the  harbor  lay  the  small  fresh- 
water lake  of  Cleikimin,  with  the  remains  of  a  Pictish  castle 
in  the  midst — one  of  those  circular  buildings  of  unhewn,  un- 
cemented  stone,  skilfully  laid,  forming  apartments  and  galler- 
ies of  such  small  dimensions  as  to  lead  Sir  Walter  Scott  to 
infer  that  the  Picts  were  a  people  of  a  stature  considerably 
below  the  ordinary  standard  of  the  human  race.  A  deep  Sab- 
bath silence  reigned  over  the  scene,  except  the  sound  of  the 
wind,  which  here  never  ceases  to  blow  from  one  quarter  or 
another,  as  it  swept  the  herbage  and  beat  against  the  stone 
walls  surrounding  the  fields.  The  ground  under  our  feet  was 
thick  with  daisies  and  the  blossoms  of  the  crow-foot  and  other 
flowers ;  for  in  the  brief  summer  of  these  islands  nature,  which 
has  no  groves  to  embellish,  makes  amends  by  pranking  the 
ground,  particularly  in  the  uncultivated  parts,  with  a  great 
profusion  and  variety  of  flowers. 

The  next  morning  we  were  rowed,  by  two  of  Jim  Sinclair's 
boys,  to  the  island  of  Bressay,  and  one  of  them  acted  as  our 
guide  to  the  remarkable  precipice  called  the  Noup  of  the  Noss. 
We  ascended  its  smooth  slopes  and  pastures,  and  passed 
through  one  or  two  hamlets,  where  we  observed  the  construc- 
tion of  the  dwellings  of  the  Zetland  peasantry.  They  are  built 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  103 

of  unhewn  stone,  with  roofs  of  turf  held  down  by  ropes  of 
straw  neatly  twisted ;  the  floors  are  of  earth ;  the  cow,  pony, 
and  pig  live  under  the  same  roof  with  the  family,  and  the  ma- 
nure pond,  a  receptacle  for  refuse  and  filth,  is  close  to  the 
door.  A  little  higher  up  we  came  upon  the  uncultivated 
grounds,  abandoned  to  heath,  and  only  used  to  supply  fuel  by 
the  cutting  of  peat.  Here  and  there  women  were  busy  piling 
the  square  pieces  of  peat  in  stacks,  that  they  might  dry  in  the 
wind.  "  We  carry  home  these  pits  in  a  basket  on  our  showl- 
ders,  when  they  are  dry,"  said  one  of  them  to  me ;  but  those 
who  can  afford  to  keep  a  pony,  make  him  do  this  work  for 
them.  In  the  hollows  of  this  part  of  the  island  we  saw  several 
fresh-water  ponds,  which  were  enlarged  with  dikes  and  made 
to  turn  grist-mills.  We  peeped  into  one  or  two  of  these  mills, 
little  stone  buildings,  in  which  we  could  hardly  stand  upright, 
enclosing  two  small  stones  turned  by  a  perpendicular  shaft, 
in  which  are  half  a  dozen  cogs ;  the  paddles  are  fixed  below, 
and  these,  struck  by  the  water,  turn  the  upper  stone. 

A  steep  descent  brought  us  to  the  little  strait,  bordered 
with  rocks,  which  divides  Brassey  from  the  island  called  the 
Noss.  A  strong  south  wind  was  driving  in  the  billows  from 
the  sea  with  noise  and  foam,  but  they  were  broken  and  checked 
by  a  bar  of  rocks  in  the  middle  of  the  strait,  and  we  crossed 
to  the  north  of  it  in  smooth  water.  The  ferryman  told  us  that 
when  the  wind  was  northerly  he  crossed  to  the  south  of  the 
bar.  As  we  climbed  the  hill  of  the  Noss  the  mist  began  to 
drift  thinly  around  us  from  the  sea,  and  flocks  of  sea-birds  rose 
screaming  from  the  ground  at  our  approach.  At  length  we 
stood  upon  the  brink  of  a  precipice  of  fearful  height,  from 
which  we  had  a  full  view  of  the  still  higher  precipices  of  the 
neighboring  summit.  A  wall  of  rock  was  before  us  six  hun- 
dred feet  in  height,  descending  almost  perpendicularly  to  the 
sea,  which  roared  and  foamed  at  its  base  among  huge  masses 
of  rock,  and  plunged  into  great  caverns,  hollowed  out  by  the 
beating  of  the  surges  for  centuries.  Midway  on  the  rock,  and 
above  the  reach  of  the  spray,  were  thousands  of  sea-birds,  sit- 


104  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

ting  in  ranks  on  the  numerous  shelves,  or  alighting,  or  taking 
wing,  and  screaming  as  they  flew.  A  cloud  of  them  were  con- 
stantly in  the  air  in  front  of  the  rock  and  over  our  heads.  Here 
they  make  their  nests  and  rear  their  young,  but  not  entirely 
safe  from  the  pursuit  of  the  Zetlander,  who  causes  himself  to 
be  let  down  by  a  rope  from  the  summit  and  plunders  their 
nests.  The  face  of  the  rock,  above  the  portion  which  is  the 
haunt  of  the  birds,  was  fairly  tapestried  with  herbage  and 
flowers  which  the  perpetual  moisture  of  the  atmosphere  keeps 
always  fresh — daisies  nodding  in  the  wind,  and  the  crimson 
phlox,  seeming  to  set  the  cliffs  on  flame ;  yellow  buttercups, 
and  a  variety  of  other  plants  in  bloom,  of  which  I  do  not  know 
the  name. 

Magnificent  as  this  spectacle  was,  we  were  not  satisfied 
without  climbing  to  the  summit.  As  we  passed  upward,  we 
saw  where  the  rabbits  had  made  their  burrows  in  the  elastic 
peat-like  soil  close  to  the  very  edge  of  the  precipice.  We  now 
found  ourselves  involved  in  the  cold  streams  of  mist  which  the 
strong  sea-wind  was  drifting  over  us ;  they  were  in  fact  the 
lower  skirts  of  the  clouds.  At  times  they  would  clear  away 
and  give  us  a  prospect  of  the  green  island  summits  around 
us,  with  their  bold  headlands,  the  winding  straits  between, 
and  the  black  rocks  standing  out  in  the  sea.  When  we  arrived 
at  the  summit  we  could  hardly  stand  against  the  wind,  but  it 
was  almost  more  difficult  to  muster  courage  to  look  down  that 
dizzy  depth  over  which  the  Zetlanders  suspend  themselves 
with  ropes,  in  quest  of  the  eggs  of  the  sea-fowl.  My  friend 
captured  a  young  gull  on  the  summit  of  the  Noup.  The  bird 
had  risen  at  his  approach,  and  essayed  to  fly  toward  the  sea, 
but  the  strength  of  the  wind  drove  him  back  to  the  land.  He 
rose  again,  but  could  not  sustain  a  long  flight,  and,  coming  to 
the  ground  again,  was  caught,  after  a  spirited  chase,  amid  a 
wild  clamor  of  the  sea-fowl  over  our  heads. 

Not  far  from  the  Noup  is  the  Holm,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  the  Cradle,  or  Basket,  of  the  Noss.  It  is  a  perpendicu- 
lar mass  of  rock,  two  or  three  hundred  feet  high,  with  a  broad, 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  105 

flat  summit,  richly  covered  with  grass,  and  is  separated  from 
the  island  by  a  narrow  chasm,  through  which  the  sea  flows. 
Two  strong  ropes  are  stretched  from  the  main  island  to  the 
top  of  the  Holm,  and  on  these  is  slung  the  cradle  or  basket,  a 
sort  of  open  box  made  of  deal-boards,  in  which  the  shepherds 
pass  with  their  sheep  to  the  top  of  the  Holm.  We  found  the 
cradle  strongly  secured  by  lock  and  key  to  the  stakes  on  the 
side  of  the  Noss,  in  order,  no  doubt,  to  prevent  any  person 
from  crossing  for  his  own  amusement. 

As  we  descended  the  smooth  pastures  of  the  Noss,  we  fell 
in  with  a  herd  of  ponies,  of  a  size  somewhat  larger  than  is 
common  on  the  islands.  I  asked  our  guide,  a  lad  of  fourteen 
years  of  age,  what  was  the  average  price  of  a  sheltie.  His 
answer  deserves  to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold  :  "  It's  jist  as 
they're  bug  an'  smal'." 

From  the  ferryman,  at  the  strait  below,  I  got  more  specific 
information.  They  vary  in  price  from  three  to  ten  pounds, 
but  the  latter  sum  is  only  paid  for  the  finest  of  these  animals, 
in  the  respects  of  shape  and  color.  It  is  not  a  little  remarka- 
ble that  the  same  causes  which,  in  Shetland,  have  made  the 
horse  the  smallest  of  ponies,  have  almost  equally  reduced  the 
size  of  the  cow.  The  sheep,  also — a  pretty  creature,  I  might 
call  it — from  the  fine  wool  of  which  the  Shetland  women  knot 
the  thin  webs  known  by  the  name  of  Shetland  shawls,  is  much 
smaller  than  any  breed  I  have  ever  seen.  Whether  the  cause 
be  the  perpetual  chilliness  of  the  atmosphere  or  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  nourishment — for,  though  the  long  Zetland  winters 
are  temperate,  and  snow  never  lies  long  on  the  ground,  there  is 
scarce  any  growth  of  herbage  in  that  season — I  will  not  under- 
take to  say,  but  the  people  of  the  islands  ascribe  it  to  the  in- 
sufficiency of  nourishment.  It  is,  at  all  events,  remarkable 
that  the  traditions  of  the  country  should  ascribe  to  the  Picts, 
the  early  inhabitants  of  Shetland,  the  same  dwarfish  stature, 
and  that  the  numerous  remains  of  their  habitations  which  still 
exist  should  seem  to  confirm  the  tradition.  The  race  which 
at  present  possesses  the  Shetlands  is,  however,  of  what  the 


106  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

French  call  "  an  advantageous  stature,"  and  well  limbed.  If 
it  be  the  want  of  a  proper  and  genial  warmth  which  prevents 
the  due  growth  of  the  domestic  animals,  it  is  a  want  to  which 
the  Zetlanders  are  not  subject.  Their  hills  afford  the  man  ap- 
parently an  inexhaustible  supply  of  peat,  which  costs  the  poor- 
est man  nothing  but  the  trouble  of  cutting  it  and  bringing  it 
home  ;  and  their  cottages,  I  was  told,  are  always  well  warmed 
in  winter. 

In  crossing  the  narrow  strait  which  separates  the  Noss 
from  Bressay,  I  observed  on  the  Bressay  side,  overlooking  the 
water,  a  round  hillock,  of  very  regular  shape,  in  which  the 
green  turf  was  intermixed  with  stones.  "  That,"  said  the 
ferryman,  "  is  what  we  call  a  Pictish  castle.  I  mind  when  it 
was  opened  ;  it  was  full  of  rooms,  so  that  ye  could  go  over 
every  part  of  it."  I  climbed  the  hillock,  and  found,  by  in- 
specting several  openings  which  had  been  made  by  the  peas- 
antry to  take  away  the  stones,  that  below  the  turf  it  was  a 
regular  work  of  Pictish  masonry,  but  the  spiral  galleries, 
which  these  openings '  revealed,  had  been  completely  choked 
up  in  taking  away  the  materials  of  which  they  were  built. 
Although  plenty  of  stone  may  be  found  everywhere  in  the 
islands,  there  seems  to  be  a  disposition  to  plunder  these  re- 
markable remains  for  the  sake  of  building  cottages,  or  making 
those  enclosures  for  their  cabbages  which  the  islanders  call 
crubs.  They  have  been  pulling  down  the  Pictish  castle,  on  the 
little  island  in  the  fresh-water  loch  called  Cleikimin,  near  Ler- 
wick,  described  with  such  minuteness  by  Scott  in  his  journal, 
till  very  few  traces  of  its  original  construction  are  left.  If  the 
enclosing  of  lands  for  pasturage  and  cultivation  proceeds  as  it 
has  begun,  these  curious  monuments  of  a  race  which  has  long 
perished  will  disappear. 

Now  that  we  were  out  of  hearing  of  the  cries  of  the  sea- 
birds,  we  were  regaled  with  more  agreeable  sounds.  We  had 
set  out,  as  we  climbed  the  island  of  Bressay,  amid  a  perfect 
chorus  of  larks,  answering  each  other  in  the  sky,  and  some- 
times apparently  from  the  clouds ;  and  now  we  heard  them 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE. 


JO/ 


again  overhead,  pouring  out  their  sweet  notes  so  fast  and  so 
ceaselessly  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  little  creatures  imagined 
they  had  more  to  utter  than  they  had  time  to  utter  it  in.  In 
no  part  of  the  British  Islands  have  I  seen  the  larks  so  numer- 
ous or  so  merry  as  in  the  Shetlands. 

We  waited  awhile,  at  the  wharf  by  the  minister's  house  in 
Bressay,  for  Jim  Sinclair,  who  at  length  appeared  in  his  boat 
to  convey  us  to  Lerwick.  "  He  is  a  noisy  fellow,"  said  our 
good  landlady,  and  truly  we  found  him  voluble  enough,  but 
quite  amusing.  As  he  rowed  us  to  town  he  gave  us  a  sample 
of  his  historical  knowledge,  talking  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and 
the  settlement  of  North  America,  and  told  us  that  his  greatest 
pleasure  was  to  read  historical  books  in  the  long  winter 
nights.  His  children,  he  said,  could  all  read  and  write.  We 
dined  on  a  leg  of  Shetland  mutton,  with  a  tart  made  "  of  the 
only  fruit  of  the  island,"  as  a  Scotchman  called  it,  the  stalks  of 
the  rhubarb  plant,  and  went  on  board  of  our  steamer  about  six 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  It  was  matter  of  some  regret  to  us 
that  we  were  obliged  to  leave  Shetland  so  soon.  Two  or 
three  days  more  might  have  been  pleasantly  passed  among  its 
grand  precipices,  its  winding  straits,  its  remains  of  a  remote 
and  rude  antiquity,  its  little  horses,  little  cows,  and  little  sheep, 
its  sea-fowl,  its  larks,  its  flowers,  and  its  hardy  and  active 
people.  There  was  an  amusing  novelty  also  in  going  to  bed, 
as  we  did,  by  daylight,  for  at  this  season  of  the  year  the  day- 
light is  never  out  of  the  sky,  and  the  flush  of  early  sunset  only 
passes  along  the  horizon  from  the  northwest  to  the  northeast, 
where  it  brightens  into  sunrise. 

The  Zetlanders,  I  was  told  by  a  Scotch  clergyman  who 
had  lived  among  them  forty  years,  are  naturally  shrewd  and 
quick  of  apprehension  ;  "  as  to  their  morals,"  he  added,  "  if  ye 
stay  among  them  any  time  ye'll  be  able  to  judge  for  yourself." 
So,  on  the  point  of  morals,  I  am  in  the  dark.  More  attention, 
I  hear,  is  paid  to  the  education  of  their  children  than  formerly, 
and  all  have  the  opportunity  of  learning  to  read  and  write  in 
the  parochial  schools.  Their  agriculture  is  still  very  rude ; 

VOL.   II.— 8 


108  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

they  are  very  unwilling  to  adopt  the  instruments  of  husbandry 
used  in  England,  but,  on  the  whole,  they  are  making  some  prog- 
ress. A  Shetland  gentleman,  who,  as  he  remarked  to  me,  had 
"  had  the  advantage  of  seeing  some  other  countries  "  besides 
his  own,  complained  that  the  peasantry  were  spending  too 
much  of  their  earnings  for  tea,  tobacco,  and  spirits.  Last 
winter  a  terrible  famine  came  upon  the  islands  ;  their  fisheries 
had  been  unproductive,  and  the  potato  crop  had  been  cut  off 
by  the  blight.  The  communication  with  Scotland  by  steam- 
boat had  ceased,  as  it  always  does  in  winter,  and  it  was  long 
before  the  sufferings  of  the  Shetlanders  were  known  in  Great 
Britain ;  but,  as  soon  as  the  intelligence  was  received,  contri- 
butions were  made  and  the  poor  creatures  were  relieved. 

Their  climate,  inhospitable  as  it  seems,  is  healthy,  and  they 
live  to  a  good  old  age.  A  native  of  the  island,  a  baronet,  who 
has  a  great  white  house  on  a  bare  field  in  sight  of  Lerwick, 
and  was  a  passenger  on  board  the  steamer  in  which  we  made 
our  passage  to  the  island,  remarked  that,  if  it  was  not  the 
healthiest  climate  in  the  world,  the  extremely  dirty  habits  of 
the  peasantry  would  engender  disease,  which,  however,  was 
not  the  case.  "  It  is,  probably,  the  effect  of  the  saline  particles 
in  the  air,"  he  added.  His  opinion  seemed  to  be  that  the  dirt 
was  salted  by  the  sea-winds,  and  preserved  from  further  de- 
composition. I  was  somewhat  amused  in  hearing  him  boast 
of  the  climate  of  Shetland  in  winter.  "  Have  you  never  ob- 
served," said  he,  turning  to  the  old  Scotch  clergyman  of  whom 
I  have  already  spoken,  "  how  much  larger  the  proportion  of 
sunny  days  is  in  our  islands  than  at  the  south  ?  "  "I  have 
never  observed  it,"  was  the  dry  answer  of  the  minister. 

The  people  of  Shetland  speak  a  kind  of  Scottish,  but  not 
with  the  Scottish  accent.  Four  hundred  years  ago,  when  the 
islands  were  transferred  from  Norway  to  the  British  crown, 
their  language  was  Norse,  but  that  tongue,  although  some  of 
its  words  have  been  preserved  in  the  present  dialect,  has  be- 
come extinct.  "  I  have  heard,"  said  an  intelligent  Shetlander 
to  me,  "  that  there  are  yet,  perhaps,  half  a  dozen  persons  in 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE. 


109 


one  of  our  remotest  neighborhoods  who  are  able  to  speak  it, 
but  I  never  met  with  one  who  could." 

In  returning  from  Lerwick  to  the  Orkneys  we  had  a  sam- 
ple of  the  weather  which  is  often  encountered  in  these  latitudes. 
The  wind  blew  a  gale  in  the  night,  and  our  steamer  was  tossed 
about  on  the  waves  like  an  egg-shell,  much  to  the  discomfort 
of  the  passengers.  We  had  on  board  a  cargo  of  ponies,  the 
smallest  of  which  were  from  the  Shetlands,  some  of  them  not 
much  larger  than  sheep,  and  nearly  as  shaggy ;  the  others,  of 
larger  size,  had  been  brought  from  the  Faro  Isles.  In  the 
morning,  when  the  gale  had  blown  itself  to  rest,  I  went  on 
deck  and  saw  one  of  the  Faro  Island  ponies,  which  had  given 
out  during  the  night,  stretched  dead  upon  the  deck.  I  in- 
quired if  the  body  was  to  be  committed  to  the  deep.  "  It  is 
to  be  skinned  first,"  was  the  answer. 

We  stopped  at  Kirkwall,  in  the  Orkneys,  long  enough  to 
allow  us  to  look  at  the  old  cathedral  of  St.  Magnus,  built  early 
in  the  twelfth  century — a  venerable  pile,  in  perfect  preservation, 
and  the  finest  specimen  of  the  architecture  once  called  Saxon, 
then  Norman,  and  lately  Romanesque,  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
The  round  arch  is  everywhere  used,  except  in  two  or  three 
windows  of  later  addition.  The  nave  is  narrow,  and  the  cen- 
tral groined  arches  are  lofty  ;  so  that  an  idea  of  vast  extent  is 
given,  though  the  cathedral  is  small  compared  with  the  great 
minsters  in  England.  The  work  of  completing  certain  parts 
of  the  building,  which  were  left  unfinished,  is  now  going  on 
at  the  expense  of  the  government.  All  the  old  flooring,  and 
the  pews,  which  made  it  a  parish  church,  have  been  taken 
away,  and  the  original  proportions  and  symmetry  of  the  build- 
ing are  seen  as  they  ought  to  be.  The  general  effect  of  the 
building  is  wonderfully  grand  and  solemn. 

THE  CITY  OF  BURGOS. — OCTOBER  14,  1857  :  The  first 
aspect  of  Burgos,  the  ancient  city  of  the  Cid  and  the  chief 
city  of  Old  Castile,  is  imposing.  As  the  traveller  looks  at  the 
castle  on  its  hill,  with  its  surrounding  fortifications ;  the  mass- 
ive remains  of  its  ancient  walls ;  its  vast  cathedral,  worthy,  by 


HO  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

its  magnificence,  to  have  exhausted  the  revenues  of  an  empire ; 
its  public  pleasure-grounds,  stretching  along  the  banks  of  its 
river,  almost  out  of  sight ;  the  colossal  effigies  of  its  former 
kings,  standing  at  the  bend  of  the  stream  called  the  Espolon  ; 
and  its  stately  gate  of  Santa  Maria,  where  the  statues  of  the 
Cid  and  other  men  of  the  heroic  age  of  Spain  frown  in  their 
lofty  niches — he  naturally  thinks  of  Burgos  as  the  former  seat 
of  power  and  dominion. 

The  morning  after  our  arrival  Don  Luis,  a  gentleman  to 
whom  I  had  an  introduction,  called  with  a  friend  of  his,  Don 
Pedro,  to  take  us  to  the  cathedral.  I  shall  not  weary  those 
who  may  read  this  letter  with  a  formal  description  of  the 
building,  of  which  there  are  so  many  accounts  and  so  many 
engravings.  No  engraving,  however,  nor  any  drawing  that  I 
have  seen — and  I  have  seen  several  by  clever  English  artists 
in  water-colors — gives  any  idea  of  the  magnificence  and  gran- 
deur of  its  interior.  The  immense  round  pillars  that  support 
the  dome  in  the  centre  of  the  building  rise  to  a  height  that 
fatigues  the  eye.  Your  sight  follows  them  up,  climbing  from 
one  noble  statue  to  another,  placed  on  pedestals  that  sprout 
from  their  sides  as  if  they  were  a  natural  growth,  until  it  reaches 
the  broad  vault,  where,  amid  crowds  of  statues  and  the  grace- 
ful tracery  of  the  galleries,  the  light  of  heaven  streams  in  and 
floods  the  nave  below.  It  is  one  of  the  merits  of  the  cathe- 
dral of  Burgos  that,  numerous  and  sumptuous  as  are  the  ac- 
cessories, they  detract  nothing  from  the  effect  of  its  grandeur, 
and  that  the  most  profuse  richness  of  detail  harmonizes  geni- 
ally with  the  highest  majesty  of  plan.  The  sculptures  in  re- 
lief, with  which  the  walls  are  incrusted  ;  the  statues,  the  cano- 
pies, the  tracery,  even  the  tombs,  seem  as  necessary  parts  of 
the  great  whole,  as  forests  and  precipices  are  of  the  mountains 
of  Switzerland. 

As  I  stood  under  the  great  dome  and  looked  at  its  majestic 
supports,  I  was  strongly  reminded  of  the  mosques  at  Constan- 
tinople, built  in  the  time  of  the  munificent  Saracen  dynasties. 
It  was  impossible  not  to  recognize  a  decided  resemblance  be- 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  HI 

tween  them  and  this  building,  so  different  from  the  cathedrals 
of  the  North.  The  cathedral  of  Burgos  was  evidently  de- 
signed by  a  mind  impregnated  with  Saracenic  ideas  of  archi- 
tecture ;  its  towers,  wrought  with  a  lightness  and  delicacy 
which  makes  them  look  as  if  woven  from  rods  of  flexible 
stone,  are  of  the  northern  Gothic  ;  but  its  dome  in  the  centre, 
with  the  enormous  round  pillars  on  which  it  is  uplifted,  is 
Oriental.  It  is  wonderful  how  perfect  is  the  preservation  of 
its  purely  architectural  parts.  The  sculptures  have  been,  in 
some  instances,  defaced  in  the  wars  by  which  Spain  has  suf- 
fered so  much  ;  the  carvings  about  the  altar  have  been  in  some 
part  destroyed,  and  inadequately  restored  ;  but  time  has  re- 
spected the  stones  of  the  building,  and,  from  the  pedestals  of 
the  columns  up  to  their  capitals,  they  look  almost  as  fresh 
from  the  chisel  as  they  must  have  looked  four  centuries  ago. 

We  were  taken,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  the  chapel  called 
del  Santisimo  Cristo,  in  which  is  a  figure  of  Christ  on  the 
Cross,  of  the  size  of  life,  with  his  head  bowed  in  the  final  agony. 
It  is  a  clever  but  somewhat  frightful  representation  of  the  last 
sufferings  of  the  Saviour,  but  the  devout  of  Burgos  hold  that 
it  exceeds  the  ordinary  perfection  of  art,  and  attribute  to  it 
the  power  of  working  miracles.  In  a  book  lying  before  me, 
I  am  informed  that,  according  to  the  "generally  received 
opinion,"  it  is  the  work  of  Nicodemus.  "  It  is  of  leather," 
said  Don  Luis,  "  and  so  much  like  the  living  body  that  the 
flesh  yields  to  your  touch,  and,  when  you  withdraw  your  fin- 
ger, recovers  its  place."  We  had  passed  through  most  of  the 
chapels,  including  that  magnificent  one  of  the  Condestable,  in 
which  lie  the  bones  of  the  founders — one  of  the  Velasco  family 
and  his  wife — under  a  broad  marble  slab,  supporting  their  own 
colossal  statues,  exquisitely  carved  in  marble,  with  coronets 
on  their  heads,  and  ample  robes  of  state,  rich  with  lace  and 
embroidery,  flowing  to  their  feet.  As  we  were  about  leaving 
the  cathedral  by  the  principal  entrance,  Don  Luis  took  me 
into  the  chapel  of  Santa  Tecla,  to  the  north  of  the  great  portal. 
"  This,"  said  he,  "  is  the  latest  built  of  all  the  chapels,  and  it  is 


U2  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

easy  to  see  that  it  is  not  of  the  same  age  with  any  of  the  others." 
I  looked  about  me,  and  felt  as  if  I  had  suddenly  fallen  from  a 
world  of  beauty  into  a  region  of  utter  ugliness.  The  chapel 
in  all  its  parts  is  rough  with  endless  projections  and  elaborate 
carvings,  without  meaning  or  grace,  and  blazes  with  gilding  ; 
the  general  effect  is  tawdry  and  ignoble.  How  any  architect, 
with  the  example  of  the  cathedral  before  him,  and  the  beauti- 
ful chapels  which  open  from  it,  could  have  designed  anything 
in  so  wretched  a  style,  I  cannot  imagine. 

We  dined  that  day  at  the  ordinary,  or  mesa  rcdonda,  which 
was  served  at  two  o'clock,  the  fashionable  hour  at  Burgos. 
With  the  exception  of  one  or  two,  who  sat  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  the  men  wore  their  hats  while  eating.  The  Spaniards 
consider  the  eating-room  in  a  hotel  as  much  a  public  place  as 
the  great  square,  and,  consequently,  use  much  the  same  free- 
dom in  it.  I  saw  the  guests  at  the  table  turn  their  heads  and 
spit  on  the  floor.  They  shovelled  down  the  chick-peas  and 
cabbage  with  the  blades  of  their  knives,  which  they  used  with 
great  dexterity.  They  were  polite,  however  ;  not  one  of  them 
would  allow  himself  to  be  helped  to  any  dish  until  after  all  the 
ladies  ;  at  the  dessert  they  offered  the  ladies  the  peaches  they 
had  peeled,  and  they  rose  and  bowed  when  the  ladies  left  the 
room.  On  going  out,  we  were  again  met  by  the  hostess,  who 
hoped  that  we  had  dined  well ;  and,  being  assured  that  we  had, 
expressed  her  pleasure  at  the  information. 

The  talk  at  the  table  was  principally  of  the  bull-fight 
which  was  to  take  place  that  day  at  Burgos.  I  took  a  turn 
after  dinner  with  Don  Luis  and  Don  Pedro  on  the  new  pub- 
lic walk,  the  Paseo  de  la  Tinta,  extending  along  the  Arlanza 
for  the  space  of  a  league,  and  found  it  almost  deserted  ;  only 
here  and  there  a  solitary  stroller,  and  a  few  children  with  their 
nurses.  From  time  to  time  the  air  was  rent  with  the  shouts 
of  a  multitude  at  no  great  distance.  "  It  is  the  clamor  of 
the  spectators  of  the  bull-fight,"  said  Don  Pedro  ;  "  the  pub- 
lic walks  are  forsaken  for  t\\e  plaza  de  toros.  I  do  not  know 
whether  your  sight  is  as  good  as  mine,  but  do  you  see  that 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  113 

crowd  of  people  on  the  hill  ?  "  I  looked  in  the  direction  to 
which  he  pointed,  and  beheld  an  eminence,  nearly  half  a  mile 
from  the  broad  circular  amphitheatre  of  rough  boards  erected 
for  the  bull-fight,  thronged  with  people.  "  There,"  said  Don 
Pedro,  "  is  a  proof  of  the  interest  which  is  taken  in  these  spec- 
tacles. Those  people  cannot  pay  for  admission  to  the  amphi- 
theatre, and  therefore  content  themselves  with  what  little  they 
can  see  of  it  from  that  distance.  All  Burgos  is  either  in  the 
amphitheatre  or  on  the  hill." 

GRANADA  AND  THE  ALHAMBRA.  —  DECEMBER,  1857:  At 
length  Granada  lay  before  our  eyes,  on  a  hill-side,  with  her 
ancient  towers  rising  over  her  roofs  and  her  woods,  and 
towering  far  above  all  gleamed  the  snowy  summits  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  in  which  her  rivers  have  their  source.  We 
drove  into  the  city  through  a  wretched  suburb,  and  were 
instantly  surrounded  by  a  mob  of  young  beggars,  who  trotted 
and  shouted  beside  the  diligence,  while  the  people  gazed  and 
grinned  at  us  from  the  doors  and  windows.  Every  city  in 
Spain  has  its  particular  custom-house,  and  our  baggage  had, 
of  course,  to  undergo  an  inspection,  after  which  we  had  it 
sent  to  the  Fonda  de  Minerva,  on  the  Darro,  a  tolerable  hotel, 
but  miserably  sunless  and  chilly  at  this  season  of  the  year. 
After  having  dined  in  an  uncomfortably  airy  saloon,  we  went 
out  into  the  pleasant  evening  sunshine  and  walked  upon  the 
Alameda,  planted  with  majestic  elms  that  overhang  a  broad 
space  with  their  long  spreading  branches,  and  form  one  of  the 
finest  public  walks  in  all  Spain.  The  extent  and  beauty  of  its 
public  walks  are  the  most  remarkable  characteristics  of  Gra- 
nada. They  surround  the  hill  on  which  stands  the  Alhambra, 
and  intersect  its  thick  woods ;  they  accompany  the  Genii  a 
considerable  way  on  its  course ;  they  follow  the  stream  of  the 
Darro ;  they  border  the  town  at  its  different  extremities  and 
issues. 

I  am  not  about  to  describe  Granada.  After  what  Irving 
has  written  of  it,  I  should  as  soon  think  of  attempting  a  poem 
on  the  wrath  of  Achilles  in  competition  with  Homer.  Let  me 


114 


SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 


say  of  it,  however,  that  its  site  is  as  beautiful  and  striking  as 
its  antiquities.  There  is  but  one  Alhambra  ;  there  is  but  one 
Granada.  Could  it  have  been  the  taste  of  the  Moorish  sov- 
ereigns ;  could  it  have  been  their  sense  of  the  beauty  of  na- 
ture which  led  them  to  fix  their  residence  in  a  spot  presenting 
such  glorious  combinations  of  mountain  and  valley,  forest  and 
stream — a  spot  where  you  hear  on  all  sides  the  sound  of  fall- 
ing waters  and  the  murmur  of  rivers;  where  the  hill-sides 
and  water-courses  clothe  themselves  with  dense  woods ;  where 
majestic  mountains  stand  in  sight,  capped  with  snow,  while 
at  their  foot,  stretching  away  from  the  town,  lies  one  of  the 
fairest  and  most  fertile  valleys  that  the  sun  ever  shone  upon  ? 
However  this  may  be,  the  place  was  the  fitting  seat  of  a  great 
and  splendid  dominion. 

If  in  any  respect  the  Alhambra  did  not  correspond  with 
the  idea  I  had  previously  formed  of  it,  it  was  in  the  minute- 
ness of  its  ornamentation.  I  did  not  expect  that  the  figures 
into  which  the  surface  of  its  walls  is  wrought,  and  which  yet, 
in  most  places,  preserve  the  sharp  outline  of  a  stereotype 
plate,  would  prove  to  be  no  larger  than  some  engravings  in 
which  they  are  represented.  Yet  this  very  minuteness,  I  must 
admit,  harmonizes  perfectly  with  the  general  character  of  the 
architecture,  which  is  that  of  the  utmost  lightness  and  delicacy 
possible  in  buildings  of  stone.  The  architecture  of  the  Al- 
hambra is  that  of  the  harem ;  it  is  the  architecture  of  a  race 
who  delighted  in  voluptuous  ease,  who  wrapped  themselves 
in  soft  apparel,  and  lolled  upon  divans.  The  Alhambra  was 
the  summer  palace  of  the  Moorish  monarchs — a  place  of  luxu- 
rious retreat  from  the  relaxing  heats  of  the  season — a  place  of 
shade  and  running  waters,  courting  the  entrance  of  the  winds 
under  its  arches  and  between  its  slender  pillars,  yet  spreading 
a  screen  against  the  sunshine.  To  this  end  the  stones  of  the 
quarry  were  shaped  into  a  bower,  with  columns  as  light  as  the 
stems  of  the  orange-trees  planted  in  its  courts,  and  walls  in- 
crusted  with  scroll-work  and  foliage  as  delicate  as  the  leaves 
of  the  myrtle  growing  by  its  fountains.  Yet  the  most  re- 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  115 

markable  parts  of  the  Alhambra  are  those  lofty  rooms  with 
circular  vaults,  from  which  hang  innumerable  little  points  like 
icicles,  with  rounded  recesses  between  them.  These  are  as 
strangely  beautiful  as  a  dream,  and  translate  into  a  visible  re- 
ality the  poetic  idea  of  a  sparry  cavern  formed  by  genii  in  the 
chambers  of  the  rock. 

I  was  glad  to  see  workmen  employed  in  restoring  the  de- 
faced parts  of  this  palace.  The  work  goes  on  sluggishly,  it 
is  true,  but  it  is  a  comfort  to  perceive  that  the  ingenuity  of 
man  renews  faster  than  time  destroys.  I  was  still  more 
pleased  to  learn  that  the  clumsy  additions  with  which  the 
Spanish  monarchs  disfigured  the  beautiful  work  of  the  Moors 
are  to  be  taken  down.  On  the  original  flat  roofs  they  built 
another  story,  on  the  sides  of  which  they  ostentatiously  dis- 
played the  arms  of  Castile,  by  way  of  publishing  their  own 
bad  taste,  and  this  superstructure  they  covered  with  a  pointed 
roof  of  heavy  tiles.  "  All  that,"  said  the  keeper  of  the  place, 
when  I  expressed  my  disgust  at  its  deformity,  "is  to  come 
down — everything  that  you  see  above  the  Moorish  cornice — 
and  the  building  is  to  be  left  as  it  was  at  first."  Besides  mis- 
erably spoiling  the  general  effect,  these  roofs  load  the  columns 
below  with  too  great  a  weight.  An  earthquake  which  hap- 
pened two  or  three  years  since  made  them  reel  under  their 
burden  ;  it  moved  several  of  them  from  their  upright  position, 
and  rendered  it  necessary  to  prop  others  with  a  framework  of 
wooden  posts  and  braces.  When  the  barbarian  additions 
made  by  the  Spaniards  shall  be  removed,  it  will  be  easy,  I 
suppose,  to  restore  the  columns  to  their  upright  state,  and  the 
wooden  supports  will  become  unnecessary.  At  some  future 
time  we  may  hope  that  the  visitor  will  see  this  palace,  if  not 
in  its  original  splendor,  yet  cleared  at  least  of  what  now  pre- 
vents him  from  perceiving  much  of  its  original  beauty  and 
grace. 

I  was  told  that  visitors  are  no  longer  allowed  admission  to 
the  garden  under  the  walls  of  the  citadel,  called  the  Garden 
of  the  Moorish  Kings ;  but  a  letter  to  the  Governor  of  the 


n6  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

Alhambra,  with  which  I  had  been  furnished  at  Madrid,  opened 
it  to  our  party.  Here  an  enormous  vine,  said  to  be  of  the 
time  of  the  Moors,  twists  its  half-decayed  trunk  around  a  stone 
pillar.  It  looks  old  enough,  certainly,  to  have  yielded  its 
clusters  to  Arab  hands,  and  perhaps  will  yet  yield  them  to  their 
descendants,  when,  in  the  next  century,  the  Arab  race,  imbued 
with  the  civilization  of  western  Europe,  and  becoming  fond 
of  travel  and  curious  in  matters  of  antiquity,  shall  visit  hos- 
pitable Spain  to  contemplate  the  vestiges  of  power  and  splendor 
left  in  that  land  by  their  fathers.  Two  lofty  cypresses,  planted 
by  the  Moors  on  this  part  of  the  hill  of  the  Alhambra,  yet 
stand  in  their  full  vigor  and  freshness — a  sight  scarcely  less 
interesting  than  the  Alhambra  itself.  These  trees  have  sur- 
vived wars  and  sieges,  droughts  and  earthquakes,  and  flourish 
in  perpetual  greenness,  while  generations  and  dynasties  and 
empires  have  passed  away,  and  while  even  the  massive  fort- 
resses built  by  those  who  planted  them  are  beginning  to 
crumble.  Thus  they  may  outlast  not  only  empires,  but  the 
monuments  of  empires. 

A  general  letter  of  introduction  from  Archbishop  Hughes, 
of  New  York,  obtained  for  us  access  to  the  relics  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  in  the  Royal  Chapel  of  the  cathedral,  and  to  the 
vaults  below,  in  which  their  remains  are  laid.  The  mausoleum 
of  these  sovereigns  before  the  altar  is  one  of  the  most  superb 
things  of  its  kind  in  the  world;  their  colossal  effigies  lie 
crowned  and  sceptred  in  their  robes  of  state,  and  on  the  sides 
of  their  marble  couch  is  sculptured  the  story  of  their  con- 
quests. I  was  amused  by  an  odd  fancy  of  one  of  our  compan- 
ions. "  Do  you  perceive,"  said  he,  "  that  the  head  of  Ferdi- 
nand makes  scarcely  any  impression  on  his  pillow,  while  the 
head  of  Isabella  sinks  deep  into  hers  ?  The  artist  no  doubt 
intended  to  signify  that  the  Queen's  head  was  much  better 
furnished  than  that  of  her  consort." 

An  ecclesiastic  sent  to  accompany  us,  by  the  Archbishop 
of  Granada,  called  to  an  attendant,  who  brought  a  light,  and, 
removing  a  carpet  on  the  floor  between  the  mausoleum  and 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  uj 

the  altar,  pulled  up  a  trap-door,  below  which,  leading  down 
to  a  vault,  was  a  flight  of  steps.  We  descended,  and  here  we 
were  introduced  to  the  coffins  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  im- 
mediately under  the  monument  which  we  had  just  been  ad- 
miring. They  are  large,  shapeless  leaden  boxes,  in  which  the 
bodies  of  the  royal  pair  were  enclosed  at  their  death,  and  de- 
posited near  to  the  spot  where  the  priests  chant  their  litanies 
and  offer  the  sacrifice.  The  contrast  between  the  outside  of 
this  sepulchre  and  what  we  now  saw  was  striking ;  above,  in 
the  beautiful  chapel,  everything  was  pompous  and  splendid, 
but  here  lay  the  dead,  within  a  bare  dungeon  of  hewn  stone, 
in  dust,  darkness,  and  silence.  When  we  again  ascended  to 
the  chapel,  the  ecclesiastic  caused  the  crown  and  sceptre  of 
Isabella,  and  the  sword  of  Ferdinand,  to  be  brought  forth  and 
shown  us,  along  with  one  or  two  other  relics,  among  which 
was  a  dalmaticv,  or  ecclesiastical  mantle,  heavily  embroidered 
with  thread  of  gold  by  the  pious  hands  of  Isabella,  to  be  worn 
by  the  priests  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  church.  The  crown,  I 
must  say,  appeared  to  me  to  be  rather  a  rude  bauble  of  its  kind, 
but  it  had  been  worn  by  a  great  sovereign. 

We  could  not  help  regretting,  every  moment  of  our  stay 
at  Granada,  that  we  had  not  visited  it  earlier  in  the  season ; 
for  now  the  air,  after  the  first  day,  was  keen  and  sharp,  and 
the  braziers  brought  into  our  room  were  quite  insufficient  to 
remove  the  perpetual  comfortless  feeling  of  chilliness.  Still 
more  fortunate  should  we  have  been  if  we  could  have  visited 
Granada  in  the  spring.  That  is  the  time  to  see  Granada,  and 
not  to  see  it  merely,  but  to  enjoy  it  with  the  other  senses — to 
inhale  the  fragrance  of  its  blossomed  orange-trees,  and  of 
other  flowers  just  opened  ;  to  hear  the  music  of  the  nightin- 
gales, with  which  its  woods  are  populous ;  to  listen  at  open 
windows  to  the  murmur  of  its  mountains  and  streams,  and  to 
feel  the  soft  winds  that  blow  over  its  luxuriant  Vega,  and  all 
this  in  the  midst  of  scenes  associated  with  a  thousand  romantic 
memories. 

As  a  town,  Granada  forms  a  perfect  contrast  with  the 


H8  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

beauty  that  surrounds  it ;  it  is  ugly ;  the  houses  for  the  most 
part  mean,  and  the  streets  narrow,  winding,  and  gloomy,  in 
some  places  without  a  pavement,  and  generally,  owing  to  cer- 
tain habits  of  the  people,  nasty.  There  is  a  group  of  beggars 
for  every  sunny  corner  at  this  season,  and  I  suppose  for  every 
shady  one  in  summer.  The  people  of  the  place  are  said  to 
have  the  general  character  of  the  Andalusians ;  that  is  to  say, 
to  be  fond  of  pleasure,  mirth,  and  holidays,  and  averse  to 
labor;  improvident,  lively,  eloquent,  given  to  exaggeration, 
and  acutely  sensible  to  external  impressions.  Every  afternoon 
during  our  stay  a  swarm  of  well-dressed  people  gathered 
upon  the  public  walk  on  the  other  side  of  the  Darro,  before 
our  windows,  where  we  saw  them  slowly  pacing  the  ground, 
and  then  turning  to  pace  it  over  again.  A  few  seated  them- 
selves occasionally  on  the  stone  benches,  in  spite  of  the  keen 
air,  which  they  bore  bravely.  I  had  a  letter  to  a  gentleman, 
a  native  of  Granada,  an  intelligent  man,  who,  under  one  of  the 
previous  administrations,  had  held  a  judicial  post  in  Valencia. 
At  his  first  visit  I  spoke  of  calling  to  pay  my  respects  to  him 
at  his  house.  "  Why  give  yourself  that  trouble  ?  "  he  asked ; 
"  I  will  come  to  see  you  every  evening."  And  come  he  did, 
with  the  most  exact  punctuality,  and  informed  me  of  many 
things  which  I  desired  to  know,  and  manifested  much  more 
curiosity  in  regard  to  the  institutions  and  condition  of  our 
country  than  is  usual  among  Spaniards. 

In  looking  across  from  the  Alhambra  to  the  Albaicin,  which 
is  the  old  Moorish  part  of  the  town,  we  saw  the  hill-side  above 
the  houses  hollowed  into  caverns.  "  There  live  the  gypsies," 
said  our  guide ;  "  they  burrow  in  the  earth  like  rabbits,  and 
live  swinishly  enough  together ;  but  in  some  respects  they  set 
a  good  example;  the  women  are  faithful  to  their  marriage 
vow,  and  the  gypsy  race  is  kept  unmingled."  A  practiced 
eye  easily  discerns  the  gypsy,  not  merely  by  the  darker  com- 
plexion and  by  the  silken  hair  of  the  women,  but  by  the  pe- 
culiar cast  of  countenance,  which  is  more  than  I  have  been 
able  to  do.  "  There,"  said  our  guide  one  day,  pointing  to  a 


GLIMPSES  OF  EUROPE.  II9 

man  who  stood  by  himself  in  the  street,  "  there  is  the  captain 
of  the  gypsies."  For  my  part,  I  could  not  have  distinguished 
him  from  the  common  race  of  Andalusians.  He  was  a  small, 
thin  man,  of  sallow  complexion,  wearing  the  majo  dress — a 
colored  handkerchief  tied  round  his  head,  and  over  that  a  black 
cap ;  a  short,  black  jacket,  an  embroidered  waistcoat,  a  bright 
crimson  sash  wrapped  tightly  round  his  waist,  black  knee- 
breeches,  and  embroidered  leathern  gaiters. 

The  women  of  Granada  appeared  to  me  uncommonly 
handsome,  and  this  beauty  I  often  saw  in  persons  of  the  hum- 
blest condition,  employed  in  the  rudest  labors.  The  mixture 
of  races  has  had  a  favorable  effect  in  raising  the  standard  of 
female  beauty — casting  the  features  in  a  more  symmetrical 
mould,  and  giving  them  a  more  prepossessing  expression.  I 
had  frequent  occasion  to  make  this  remark  since  I  left  the 
province  of  New  Castile.  The  physiognomy  changes  as  you 
pass  to  the  softer  climate  of  the  country  lying  on  the  sea-coast, 
where  the  blending  of  the  different  branches  of  the  Caucasian 
stock  has  been  most  miscellaneous  and  most  complete. 


CUBA  AND  THE  CUBANS. 


HAVANA,  APRIL  10, 1849:  The  city  of  Havana  has  a  cheer- 
ful appearance,  seen  from  the  harbor.  Its  massive  houses,  built 
for  the  most  part  of  the  porous  rock  of  the  island,  are  covered 
with  stucco,  generally  of  a  white  or  cream  color,  but  often 
stained  sky-blue  or  bright  yellow.  Above  these  rise  the  dark 
towers  and  domes  of  the  churches,  apparently  built  of  a  more 
durable  material,  and  looking  more  venerable  for  the  gay 
color  of  the  dwellings  amid  which  they  stand.  The  exten- 
sive fortifications  of  Cabanas  crown  the  heights  on  that  side 
of  the  harbor  which  lies  opposite  to  the  town  ;  and  south  of 
the  city  a  green,  fertile  valley,  in  which  stand  scattered  palm- 
trees,  stretches  toward  the  pleasant  village  of  Cerro. 

I  find  that  it  requires  a  greater  effort  of  resolution  to  sit 
down  to  the  writing  of  a  long  letter  in  this  soft  climate  than 
in  the  country  I  have  left.  I  feel  a  temptation  to  sit  idly,  and 
let  the  grateful  wind  from  the  sea,  coming  in  at  the  broad  win- 
dows, flow  around  me,  or  read,  or  talk,  as  I  happen  to  have  a 
book  or  a  companion.  That  there  is  something  in  a  tropical 
climate  which  indisposes  one  to  vigorous  exertion  I  can  well 
believe,  from  what  I  experience  in  myself,  and  what  I  see 
around  me.  The  ladies  do  not  seem  to  take  the  least  exer- 
cise, except  an  occasional  drive  on  the  Paseo,  or  public  park  ; 
they  never  walk  out,  and  when  they  are  shopping,  which  is  no 
less  the  vocation  of  their  sex  here  than  in  other  civilized  coun- 
tries, they  never  descend  from  their  volantes,  but  the  goods  are 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  I2i 

brought  out  by  the  obsequious  shopkeeper,  and  the  lady 
makes  her  choice  and  discusses  the  price  as  she  sits  in  her 
carriage. 

Yet  the  women  of  Cuba  show  no  tokens  of  delicate  health. 
Freshness  of  color  does  not  belong  to  a  latitude  so  near  the 
equator;  but  they  have  plump  figures,  placid,  unwrinkled 
countenances,  a  well-developed  bust,  and  eyes  the  brilliant 
languor  of  which  is  not  the  languor  of  illness.  The  girls,  as 
well  as  the  young  men,  have  rather  narrow  shoulders,  but,  as 
they  advance  in  life,  the  chest,  in  the  women  particularly, 
seems  to  expand  from  year  to  year,  till  it  attains  an  amplitude 
by  no  means  common  in  our  country.  I  fully  believe  that 
this  effect  and  their  general  health,  in  spite  of  the  inaction  in 
which  they  pass  their  lives,  are  owing  to  the  free  circulation  of 
air  through  their  apartments.  For  in  Cuba  the  women,  as 
well  as  the  men,  may  be  said  to  live  in  the  open  air.  They 
know  nothing  of  close  rooms  in  all  the  island,  and  nothing  of 
foul  air,  and  to  this,  I  have  no  doubt,  quite  as  much  as  to  the 
mildness  of  the  temperature,  the  friendly  effect  of  its  climate 
upon  invalids  from  the  north  is  to  be  ascribed.  Their  ceil- 
ings are  extremely  lofty,  and  the  wide  windows,  extending 
from  the  top  of  the  room  to  the  floor,  and  guarded  by  long 
perpendicular  bars  of  iron,  are  without  glass,  and,  when 
closed,  are  generally  only  closed  with  blinds,  which,  while 
they  break  the  force  of  the  wind  when  it  is  too  strong,  do 
not  exclude  the  air.  Since  I  have  been  on  the  island  I  may 
be  said  to  have  breakfasted  and  dined  and  supped  and  slept 
in  the  open  air,  in  an  atmosphere  which  is  never  in  repose 
except  for  a  short  time  in  the  morning  after  sunrise.  At 
other  times  a  breeze  is  always  stirring :  in  the  day-time 
bringing  in  the  air  from  the  ocean,  and  at  night  drawing  it 
out  again  to  the  sea. 

In  walking  through  the  streets  of  the  towns  in  Cuba,  I 
have  been  entertained  by  the  glimpses  I  had  through  the 
ample  windows  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  parlors.  Some- 
times a  curtain  hanging  before  them  allowed  me  only  a  sight 


122  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

of  the  small  hands  which  clasped  the  bars  of  the  grate,  and  the 
dusky  faces  and  dark  eyes  peeping  into  the  street  and  scan- 
ning the  passers  by.  At  other  times  the  whole  room  was 
seen,  with  its  furniture,  and  its  female  forms  sitting  in  languid 
postures,  courting  the  breeze  as  it  entered  from  without.  In 
the  evening,  as  I  passed  along  the  narrow  sidewalk  of  the 
narrow  streets,  I  have  been  startled  at  finding  myself  almost 
in  the  midst  of  a  merry  party  gathered  about  the  window  of 
a  brilliantly  lighted  room,  and  chattering  the  soft  Spanish  of 
the  island  in  voices  that  sounded  strangely  near  to  me.  I 
have  spoken  of  their  languid  postures :  they  love  to  recline 
on  sofas  ;  their  houses  are  filled  with  rocking-chairs  imported 
from  the  United  States ;  they  are  fond  of  sitting  in  chairs 
tilted  against  the  wall,  as  we  sometimes  do  at  home.  Indeed, 
they  go  beyond  us  in  this  respect ;  for  in  Cuba  they  have  in- 
vented a  kind  of  chair  which,  by  lowering  the  back  and  rais- 
ing the  knees,  places  the  sitter  precisely  in  the  posture  he 
would  take  if  he  sat  in  a  chair  leaning  backward  against  a 
wall.  It  is  a  luxurious  attitude,  I  must  own,  and  I  do  not 
wonder  that  it  is  a  favorite  with  lazy  people,  for  it  relieves  one 
of  all  the  trouble  of  keeping  the  body  upright. 

It  is  the  women  who  form  the  large  majority  of  the  wor- 
shippers in  the  churches.  I  landed  here  in  Passion  Week,  and 
the  next  day  was  Holy  Thursday,  when  not  a  vehicle  on 
wheels  of  any  sort  is  allowed  to  be  seen  in  the  streets ;  and 
the  ladies,  contrary  to  their  custom  during  the  rest  of  the 
year,  are  obliged  to  resort  to  the  churches  on  foot.  Negro 
servants  of  both  sexes  were  seen  passing  to  and  fro,  carrying 
mats  on  which  their  mistresses  were  to  kneel  in  the  morning 
service.  All  the  white  female  population,  young  and  old, 
were  dressed  in  black,  with  black  lace  veils.  In  the  afternoon 
three  wooden  or  waxen  images  of  the  size  of  life,  representing 
Christ  in  the  different  stages  of  his  passion,  were  placed  in  the 
spacious  Church  of  St.  Catharine,  which  was  so  thronged  that 
I  found  it  difficult  to  enter.  Near  the  door  was  a  figure  of 
the  Saviour  sinking  under  the  weight  of  his  cross,  and  the 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS. 


123 


worshippers  were  kneeling  to  kiss  his  feet.  Aged  negro 
men  and  women,  half-naked  negro  children,  ladies  richly 
attired,  little  girls  in  Parisian  dresses,  with  lustrous  black 
eyes  and  a  profusion  of  ringlets,  cast  themselves  down  be- 
fore the  image  and  pressed  their  lips  to  its  feet  in  a  pas- 
sion of  devotion.  Mothers  led  up  their  little  ones,  and 
showed  them  how  to  perform  this  act  of  adoration.  I  saw 
matrons  and  young  women  rise  from  it  with  their  eyes  red 
with  tears. 

The  next  day,  which  was  Good  Friday,  about  twilight  a 
long  procession  came  trailing  slowly  through  the  streets  un- 
der my  window,  bearing  an  image  of  the  dead  Christ  lying 
upon  a  cloth  of  gold.  It  was  accompanied  by  a  body  of  sol- 
diery, holding  their  muskets  reversed,  and  a  band  playing 
plaintive  tunes  ;  the  crowd  uncovered  their  heads  as  it  passed. 
On  Saturday  morning,  at  ten  o'clock,  the  solemnities  of  holy 
week  were  over ;  the  bells  rang  a  merry  peal ;  hundreds  of 
volantes  and  drays,  which  had  stood  ready  harnessed,  rushed 
into  the  streets  ;  the  city  became  suddenly  noisy  with  the  rat- 
tle of  wheels  and  the  tramp  of  horses ;  the  shops  which  had 
been  shut  for  the  last  two  days  were  opened  ;  and  the  ladies, 
in  white  or  light-colored  muslins,  were  proceeding  in  their  vo- 
lantes to  purchase  at  the  shops  their  costumes  for  the  Easter 
festivities. 

I  passed  the  evening  on  the  Plaza  de  Armas,  a  public  square 
in  front  of  the  Governor's  house,  planted  with  palms  and 
other  trees,  paved  with  broad  flags,  and  bordered  with  a  row 
of  benches.  It  was  crowded  with  people  in  their  best  dresses, 
the  ladies  mostly  in  white,  and  without  bonnets,  for  the  bon- 
net in  this  country  is  only  worn  while  travelling.  Chairs  had 
been  placed  for  them  in  a  double  row  around  the  edge  of  the 
square,  and  a  row  of  volantes  surrounded  the  square,  in  each 
of  which  sat  two  or  more  ladies,  the  ample  folds  of  their  mus- 
lin dresses  flowing  out  on  each  side  over  the  steps  of  the  car- 
riage. The  Governor's  band  played  various  airs,  martial  and 
civic,  with  great  beauty  of  execution.  The  music  continued 


124  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

for  two  hours,  and  the  throng,  with  only  occasional  intervals 
of  conversation,  seemed  to  give  themselves  up  wholly  to  the 
enjoyment  of  listening  to  it. 

It  was  a  bright  moonlight  night — so  bright  that  one  might 
almost  see  to  read,  and  the  temperature  the  finest  I  can  con- 
ceive, a  gentle  breeze  rustling  among  the  palms  overhead.  I 
was  surprised  at  seeing  around  me  so  many  fair  brows  and 
snowy  necks.  It  is  the  moonlight,  said  I  to  myself,  or  per- 
haps it  is  the  effect  of  the  white  dresses,  for  the  complexions 
of  these  ladies  seem  to  differ  several  shades  from  those  which 
I  saw  yesterday  at  the  churches.  A  female  acquaintance  has 
since  given  me  another  solution  of  the  matter.  "  The  reason," 
she  said,  "  of  the  difference  you  perceived  is  this  :  that  during 
the  ceremonies  of  holy  week  they  take  off  the  cascarilla  from 
their  faces,  and  appear  in  their  natural  complexions."  I  asked 
the  meaning  of  the  word  cascarilla,  which  I  did  not  remember 
to  have  heard  before.  "  It  is  the  favorite  cosmetic  of  the  isl- 
and, and  is  made  of  egg-shells  finely  pulverized.  They  often 
fairly  plaster  their  faces  with  it.  I  have  seen  a  dark-skinned 
lady  as  white  almost  as  marble  at  a  ball.  They  will  some- 
times, at  a  morning  call  or  an  evening  party,  withdraw  to  re- 
pair the  cascarilla  on  their  faces."  I  do  not  vouch  for  this 
tale,  but  tell  it  "as  it  was  told  to  me."  Perhaps,  after  all, 
it  was  the  moonlight  which  had  produced  this  transformation, 
though  I  had  noticed  something  of  the  same  improvement  of 
complexion  just  before  sunset,  on  the  Paseo  Isabel,  a  public 
park  without  the  city  walls,  planted  with  rows  of  trees,  where, 
every  afternoon,  the  gentry  of  Havana  drive  backward  and 
forward  in  their  volantes,  with  each  a  glittering  harness,  and  a 
liveried  negro  bestriding,  in  large  jack-boots,  the  single  horse 
which  draws  the  vehicle. 

The  next  day  the  festivities  which  were  to  indemnify  the 
people  for  the  austerities  of  Lent  and  Passion  Week  began. 
The  cock-pits  were  opened  during  the  day,  and  masked  balls 
were  given  in  the  evening  at  the  theatres.  You  know,  proba- 
bly, that  cock-fighting  is  the  principal  diversion  of  the  island, 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS. 


I25 


having  entirely  supplanted  the  national  spectacle  of  bull- 
baiting.  Cuba,  in  fact,  seemed  to  me  a  great  poultry-yard.  I 
heard  the  crowing  of  cocks  in  all  quarters,  for  the  game-cock 
is  the  noisiest  and  most  boastful  of  birds,  and  is  perpetually 
uttering  his  notes  of  defiance.  In  the  villages  I  saw  the  veter- 
ans of  the  pit — a  strong-legged  race,  with  their  combs  cropped 
smooth  to  the  head,  the  feathers  plucked  from  every  part  of 
the  body  except  their  wings,  and  the  tail  docked  like  that  of  a 
coach-horse — picking  up  their  food  in  the  lanes  among  the 
chickens.  One  old  cripple  I  remember  to  have  seen,  in  the 
little  town  of  Guines,  stiff  with  wounds  received  in  combat, 
who  had  probably  got  a  furlough  for  life,  and  who,  while 
limping  among  his  female  companions,  maintained  a  sort  of 
strut  in  his  gait,  and  now  and  then  stopped  to  crow  de- 
fiance to  the  world.  The  peasants  breed  game-cocks  and 
bring  them  to  market ;  amateurs  in  the  town  train  them 
for  their  private  amusement.  Dealers  in  game-cocks  are  as 
common  as  horse-jockeys  with  us,  and  every  village  has  its 
cock-pit. 

I  went  on  Monday  to  the  Valla  de  Gallos,  situated  in  that 
part  of  Havana  which  lies  without  the  walls.  Here,  in  a  spa- 
cious enclosure,  were  two  amphitheatres  of  benches,  roofed, 
but  without  walls,  with  a  circular  area  in  the  midst.  Each 
was  crowded  with  people,  who  were  looking  at  a  cock-fight, 
and  half  of  whom  seemed  vociferating  with  all  their  might.  I 
mounted  one  of  the  outer  benches,  and  saw  one  of  the  birds 
laid  dead  by  the  other  in  a  few  minutes.  Then  was  heard  the 
chink  of  gold  and  silver  pieces,  as  the  betters  stepped  into  the 
area  and  paid  their  wagers  ;  the  slain  bird  was  carried  out  a,nd 
thrown  on  the  ground,  and  the  victor,  taken  into  the  hands  of 
the  owner,  crowed  loudly  in  celebration  of  his  victory.  Two 
other  birds  were  brought  in,  and  the  cries  of  those  who 
offered  wagers  were  heard  on  all  sides.  They  ceased  at  last, 
and  the  cocks  were  put  down  to  begin  the  combat.  They 
fought  warily  at  first,  but  at  length  began  to  strike  in  earnest ; 
the  blood  flowed,  and  the  bystanders  were  heard  to  vociferate, 


126  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

"  ahi  estdn  pclezando  /"  * — "  mata  !  mata  !  mata  !  "  f  gesticulat- 
ing at  the  same  time  with  great  violence,  and  new  wagers 
were  laid  as  the  interest  of  the  combat  increased.  In  ten  min- 
utes one  of  the  birds  was  despatched,  for  the  combat  never 
ends  till  one  of  them  has  his  death-wound.  In  the  mean  time 
several  other  combats  had  begun  in  smaller  pits  which  lay 
within  the  same  enclosure,  but  were  not  surrounded  with  cir- 
cles of  benches. 

In  the  evening  there  was  a  masked  ball  in  the  Tacon 
Theatre,  a  spacious  building,  one  of  the  largest  of  its  kind  in 
the  world.  The  pit,  floored  over,  with  the  whole  depth  of 
the  stage  open  to  the  back  wall  of  the  edifice,  furnished  a 
ball-room  of  immense  size.  People  in  grotesque  masks,  in 
hoods  or  fancy  dresses,  were  mingled  with  a  throng  clad  in 
the  ordinary  costume,  and  Spanish  dances  were  performed  to 
the  music  of  a  numerous  band.  A  well-dressed  crowd  filled 
the  first  and  second  tier  of  boxes.  The  Creole  smokes  every- 
where, and  seemed  astonished  when  the  soldier  who  stood  at 
the  door  ordered  him  to  throw  away  his  lighted  cigar  before 
entering.  Once  upon  the  floor,  however,  he  lighted  another 
cigar,  in  defiance  of  the  prohibition.  The  Spanish  dances, 
with  their  graceful  movements,  resembling  the  undulations  of 
the  sea  in  its  gentlest  moods,  are  nowhere  more  gracefully 
performed  than  in  Cuba,  by  the  young  women  born  on  the 
island.  I  could  not  help  thinking,  however,  as  I  looked  on 
that  gay  crowd,  on  the  quaint  maskers,  and  the  dancers  whose 
flexible  limbs  seemed  swayed  to  and  fro  by  the  breath  of  the 
music,  that  all  this  was  soon  to  end  at  the  Campo  Santo, 
whither  I  had  been  the  day  before,  and  I  asked  myself  how 
many  of  all  this  crowd  would  be  huddled  uncoffined,  when  their 
sports  were  over,  into  the  foul  trenches  of  the  public  cemetery. 

MATANZAS,  APRIL  i6th:  My  expectations  of  the  scenery 
of  the  island  of  Cuba,  and  of  the  magnificence  of  its  vegetation, 
have  not  been  quite  fulfilled.  At  this  season  the  hills  about 

*  "  Now  they  are  fighting  !  "  f  "  Kill  !  kill  !  kill  ! " 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  127 

Havana,  and  the  pastures  everywhere,  have  an  arid  look,  a 
russet  hue,  like  sandy  fields  with  us  when  scorched  by  a  long 
drought,  or  like  our  meadows  in  winter.  This,  however,  is 
the  dry  season  ;  and  when  I  was  told  that  but  two  showers 
of  rain  have  fallen  since  October,  I  could  only  wonder  that 
so  much  vegetation  was  left,  and  that  the  verbenas  and  other 
herbage  which  clothed  the  ground  should  yet  retain,  as  I 
perceived  they  did  when  I  saw  them  nearer,  an  unextin- 
guished  life.  I  have,  therefore,  the  disadvantage  of  seeing 
Cuba  not  only  in  the  dry  season,  but  near  the  close  of  an  un- 
commonly dry  season.  Next  month  the  rainy  season  com- 
mences, when  the  whole  island,  I  am  told,  even  the  barrenest 
parts,  flushes  into  a  deep  verdure,  creeping  plants  climb  over 
all  the  rocks  and  ascend  the  trees,  and  the  mighty  palms  put 
out  their  new  foliage. 

Shade,  however,  is  the  great  luxury  of  a  warm  climate, 
and  why  the  people  of  Cuba  do  not  surround  their  habitations 
in  the  country,  in  the  villages,  and  in  the  environs  of  the  large 
towns,  with  a  dense  umbrage  of  trees,  I  confess  I  do  not  ex- 
actly understand.  In  their  rich  soil,  and  in  their  perpetually 
genial  climate,  trees  grow  with  great  rapidity,  and  they  have 
many  noble  ones,  both  for  size  and  foliage.  The  royal  palm, 
with  its  tall,  straight,  columnar  trunk  of  a  whitish  hue,  only 
uplifts  a  Corinthian  capital  of  leaves,  and  casts  but  a  narrow 
shadow ;  but  it  mingles  finely  with  other  trees,  and,  planted  in 
avenues,  forms  a  colonnade  nobler  than  any  of  the  porticos 
to  the  ancient  Egyptian  temples.  There  is  no  thicker  foliage 
or  fresher  green  than  that  of  the  mango,  which  daily  drops 
its  abundant  fruit  for  several  months  in  the  year,  and  the 
mammea  and  the  sapote,  fruit-trees  also,  are  in  leaf  during  the 
whole  of  the  dry  season ;  even  the  Indian  fig — which  clasps 
and  kills  the  largest  trees  of  the  forest,  and  at  last  takes  their 
place,  a  stately  tree  with  a  stout  trunk  of  its  own — has  its  un- 
fading leaf  of  vivid  green. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  an  expression  of  impatience  that 
these  trees  have  not  been  formed  into  groups,  embowering 


I28  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

the  dwellings,  and  into  groves,  through  which  the  beams  of 
the  sun,  here  so  fierce  at  noonday,  could  not  reach  the  ground 
beneath.  There  is,  in  fact,  nothing  of  ornamental  cultivation 
in  Cuba  except  of  the  most  formal  kind.  Some  private  gar- 
dens there  are,  carefully  kept,  but  all  of  the  stiffest  pattern ; 
there  is  nothing  which  brings  out  the  larger  vegetation  of  the 
region  in  that  grandeur  and  magnificence  which  might  belong 
to  it.  In  the  Quinta  del  Obispo,  or  Bishop's  Garden,  which 
is  open  to  the  public,  you  find  shade  which  you  find  nowhere 
else,  but  the  trees  are  planted  in  straight  alleys,  and  the  water- 
roses,  a  species  of  water-lily  of  immense  size,  fragrant  and 
pink-colored,  grow  in  a  square  tank,  fed  by  a  straight  canal, 
with  sides  of  hewn  stone. 

Let  me  say,  however,  that  when  I  asked  for  trees  I  was 
referred  to  the  hurricanes  which  have  recently  ravaged  the 
island.  One  of  these  swept  over  Cuba  in  1844,  uprooting  the 
palms  and  the  orange  groves,  and  laying  prostrate  the  avenues 
of  trees  on  the  coffee  plantations.  The  Paseo  Isabel,  a  public 
promenade  between  the  walls  of  Havana  and  the  streets  of 
the  new  town,  was  formerly  over-canopied  with  lofty  and 
spreading  trees,  which  this  tempest  levelled  to  the  ground  ;  it 
has  now  been  planted  with  rows  of  young  trees,  which  yield 
a  meagre  shade.  In  1846  came  another  hurricane,  still  more 
terrific,  destroying  much  of  the  beauty  which  the  first  had 
spared.  Of  late  years,  also,  such  of  the  orange-trees  as  were  not 
uprooted,  or  have  recently  been  planted,  have  been  attacked 
by  the  insect  which  a  few  years  since  was  so  destructive  to 
the  same  tree  in  Florida.  The  effect  upon  the  tree  resembles 
that  of  a  blight ;  the  leaves  grow  sere,  and  the  branches  die. 
You  may  imagine,  therefore,  that  I  was  somewhat  disap- 
pointed not  to  find  the  air,  as  it  is  at  this  season  in  the  south 
of  Italy,  fragrant  with  the  odor  of  orange  and  lemon  blossoms. 
Oranges  are  scarce,  and  not  so  fine,  at  this  moment,  in  Havana 
and  Matanzas  as  in  the  fruit-shops  of  New  York.  I  hear, 
however,  that  there  are  parts  of  the  island  which  were  spared 
by  these  hurricanes,  and  that  there  are  others  where  the  rav- 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS. 


I29 


ages  of  the  insect  in  the  orange  groves  have  nearly  ceased, 
as  I  have  been  told  is  also  the  case  in  Florida. 

Let  me  mention  my  excursion  to  San  Antonio.  I  went 
thither  by  railway,  in  a  car  built  at  Newark,  drawn  by  an  en- 
gine made  in  New  York,  and  worked  by  an  American  en- 
gineer. For  some  distance  we  passed  through  fields  of  the 
sweet-potato,  which  here  never  requires  a  second  planting,  and 
propagates  itself  perpetually  in  the  soil ;  patches  of  maize,  low 
groves  of  bananas  with  their  dark  stems,  and  of  plantains  with 
their  green  ones,  and  large  tracts  producing  the  pineapple 
growing  in  rows  like  carrots.  Then  came  plantations  of  the 
sugar-cane,  with  its  sedge-like  blades  of  pale-green ;  then  ex- 
tensive tracts  of  pasturage,  with  scattered  shrubs  and  tall,  dead 
weeds,  the  growth  of  the  last  summer,  and  a  thin  herbage 
bitten  close  to  the  soil.  Here  and  there  was  an  abandoned 
coffee  plantation,  where  cattle  were  browzing  among  the  half- 
perished  shrubs  and  broken  rows  of  trees ;  and  the  neglected 
hedges  of  the  wild  pine,  piiia  raton,  as  the  Cubans  call  it,  were 
interrupted  with  broad  gaps.  Sometimes  we  passed  the  cot- 
tages of  the  monteros,  or  peasants,  built  often  of  palm-leaves, 
the  walls  formed  of  the  broad  sheath  of  the  leaf,  fastened  to 
posts  of  bamboo,  and  the  roof  thatched  with  the  long  plume- 
like  leaf  itself.  The  door  was  sometimes  hung  with  a  kind  of 
curtain  to  exclude  the  sun,  which  the  dusky-complexioned 
women  and  children  put  aside  to  gaze  at  us  as  we  passed. 
These  dwellings  were  often  picturesque  in  their  appearance, 
with  a  grove  of  plantains  behind,  a  thicket  of  bamboo  by  its 
side,  waving  its  willow-like  sprays  in  the  wind ;  a  pair  of 
mango-trees  near,  hung  with  fruit  just  ripening  and  reddish 
blossoms  just  opening,  and  a  cocoa-tree  or  two  lifting  high 
above  the  rest  its  immense  feathery  leaves  and  its  clusters  of 
green  nuts. 

We  now  and  then  met  the  monteros  themselves  scudding 
along  on  their  little  horses,  in  that  pace  which  we  call  a  rack. 
Their  dress  was  a  Panama  hat,  a  shirt  worn  over  a  pair  of 
pantaloons,  a  pair  of  rough  cow-skin  shoes,  one  of  which  was 


130 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


armed  with  a  spur,  and  a  sword  lashed  to  the  left  side  by  a 
belt  of  cotton  cloth.  They  are  men  of  manly  bearing,  of  thin 
make,  but  often  of  a  good  figure,  with  well-spread  shoulders, 
which,  however,  have  a  stoop  in  them,  contracted,  I  suppose, 
by  riding  always  with  a  short  stirrup.  Forests,  too,  we  passed. 
You  doubtless  suppose  that  a  forest  in  a  soil  and  climate  like 
this  must  be  a  dense  growth  of  trees  with  colossal  stems  and 
leafy  summits.  A  forest  in  Cuba — all  that  I  have  seen  are 
such — is  a  thicket  of  shrubs  and  creeping  plants,  through 
which  one  would  suppose  that  even  the  wild  cats  of  the  country 
would  find  it  impossible  to  make  their  way.  Above  this  im- 
passable jungle  rises  here  and  there  the  palm,  or  the  gigantic 
ceyba  or  cotton-tree,  but  more  often  trees  of  far  less  beauty, 
thinly  scattered  and  with  few  branches,  disposed  without  sym- 
metry, and  at  this  season  often  leafless. 

We  reached  San  Antonio  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  went  to  the  inn  of  La  Punta,  where  we  breakfasted  on 
rice  and  fresh  eggs,  and  a  dish  of  meat  so  highly  flavored 
with  garlic  that  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  to  what  ani- 
mal it  belonged.  Adjoining  the  inn  was  a  cock-pit,  with  cells 
for  the  birds  surrounding  the  enclosure,  in  which  they  were 
crowing  lustily.  Two  or  three  persons  seemed  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  tend  them ;  and  one,  in  particular,  with  a 
gray  beard,  a  grave  aspect,  and  a  solid  gait,  went  about  the 
work  with  a  deliberation  and  solemnity  which  to  me,  who  had 
lately  seen  the  hurried  burials  at  the  Campo  Santo  in  Havana, 
was  highly  edifying.  A  man  was  training  a  game-cock  in  the 
pit;  he  was  giving  it  lessons  in  the  virtue  of  perseverance. 
He  held  another  cock  before  it,  which  he  was  teaching  it  to 
pursue,  and  striking  it  occasionally  over  the  head  to  provoke 
it,  with  the  wing  of  the  bird  in  his  hand,  he  made  it  run  after 
him  about  the  area  for  half  an  hour  together. 

I  had  heard  much  of  the  beauty  of  the  coffee  estates  of 
Cuba,  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  San  Antonio  are  some 
which  have  been  reputed  very  fine  ones.  A  young  man,  in 
a  checked  blue  and  white  shirt,  worn  like  a  frock  over 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  I3I 

checked  pantaloons,  with  a  spur  on  one  heel,  offered  to  pro- 
cure us  a  volante,  and  we  engaged  him.  He  brought  us  one 
with  two  horses,  a  negro  postilion  sitting  on  one,  and  the 
shafts  of  the  vehicle  borne  by  the  other.  We  set  off,  passing 
through  fields  guarded  by  stiff-leaved  hedges  of  the  ratoon- 
pine,  over  ways  so  bad  that,  if  the  motion  of  the  volante  were 
not  the  easiest  in  the  world,  we  should  have  taken  an  unpleas- 
ant jolting.  The  lands  of  Cuba  fit  for  cultivation  are  divided 
into  red  and  black ;  we  were  in  the  midst  of  the  red  lands, 
consisting  of  a  fine  earth  of  a  deep  brick-color,  resting  on  a 
bed  of  soft,  porous,  chalky  limestone.  In  the  dry  season  the 
surface  is  easily  dispersed  into  dust,  and  stains  your  clothes  of 
a  dull  red.  A  drive  of  four  miles,  through  a  country  full  of 
palm  and  cocoanut  trees,  brought  us  to  the  gate  of  a  coffee 
plantation,  which  our  friend  in  the  checked  shirt,  by  whom 
we  were  accompanied,  opened  for  us.  We  passed  up  to  the 
house  through  what  had  been  an  avenue  of  palms,  but  was 
now  two  rows  of  trees  at  very  unequal  distances,  with  here 
and  there  a  sickly  orange-tree.  On  each  side  grew  the  coffee 
shrubs,  hung  with  flowers  of  snowy  white,  but  unpruned,  and 
full  of  dry  and  leafless  twigs.  In  every  direction  were  ranks 
of  trees,  prized  for  ornament  or  for  their  fruit,  and  shrubs, 
among  which  were  magnificent  oleanders  loaded  with  flowers, 
planted  in  such  a  manner  as  to  break  the  force  of  the  wind, 
and  partially  to  shelter  the  plants  from  the  too  fierce  rays  of 
the  sun.  The  coffee  estate  is,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  forest,  with  the 
trees  and  shrubs  arranged  in  straight  lines.  The  mayoral,  or 
steward  of  the  estate,  a  handsome  Cuban,  with  white  teeth,  a 
pleasant  smile,  and  a  distinct  utterance  of  his  native  language, 
received  us  with  great  courtesy,  and  offered  us  cigarulos, 
though  he  never  used  tobacco ;  and  spirit  of  cane,  though  he 
never  drank.  He  wore  a  sword,  and  carried  a  large  flexible 
whip,  doubled  for  convenience,  in  the  hand.  He  showed  us 
the  coffee  plants,  the  broad  platforms  with  smooth  surfaces  of 
cement  and  raised  borders,  where  the  berries  were  dried  in 
the  sun,  and  the  mills  where  the  negroes  were  at  work  sepa- 


132 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


rating  the  kernel  from  the  pulp  in  which  it  is  enclosed. 
"  These  coffee  estates,"  said  he,  "  are  already  ruined,  and  the 
planters  are  abandoning  them  as  fast  as  they  can  ;  in  four 
years  more  there  will  not  be  a  single  coffee  plantation  on  the 
island.  They  cannot  afford  to  raise  coffee  for  the  price  they 
get  in  the  market."  I  inquired  the  reason.  "  It  is,"  replied 
he,  "  the  extreme  dryness  of  the  season  when  the  plant  is  in 
flower.  If  we  have  rain  at  this  time  of  the  year,  we  are  sure 
of  a  good  crop ;  if  it  does  not  rain,  the  harvest  is  small ;  and 
the  failure  of  rain  is  so  common  a  circumstance  that  we  must 
leave  the  cultivation  of  coffee  to  the  people  of  San  Domingo 
and  Brazil."  I  asked  if  the  plantation  could  not  be  converted 
into  a  sugar  estate.  "  Not  this,"  he  answered ;  "  it  has  been 
cultivated  too  long.  The  land  was  originally  rich,  but  it  is 
exhausted  " — tired  out  was  the  expression  he  used  ;  "  we  may 
cultivate  maize  or  rice,  for  the  dry  culture  of  rice  succeeds 
well  here,  or  we  may  abandon  it  to  grazing.  At  present  we 
keep  a  few  negroes  here,  just  to  gather  the  berries  which 
ripen,  without  taking  any  trouble  to  preserve  the  plants,  or 
replace  those  which  die."  I  could  easily  believe,  from  what  I 
saw  on  this  estate,  that  there  must  be  a  great  deal  of  beauty 
of  vegetation  in  a  well-kept  coffee  plantation ;  but  the  formal 
pattern  in  which  it  is  disposed,  the  straight  alleys  and  rows  of 
trees,  the  squares  and  parallelograms,  showed  me  that  there 
was  no  beauty  of  arrangement.  We  fell  in,  before  we  re- 
turned to  our  inn,  with  the  proprietor,  a  delicate-looking  per- 
son, with  thin  white  hands,  who  had  been  educated  at  Boston, 
and  spoke  English  as  if  he  had  never  lived  anywhere  else. 
His  manners,  compared  with  those  of  his  steward,  were  ex- 
ceedingly frosty  and  forbidding ;  and  when  we  told  him  of  the 
civility  which  had  been  shown  us,  his  looks  seemed  to  say  he 
wished  it  had  been  otherwise. 

Returning  to  our  inn,  we  dined,  and,  as  the  sun  grew  low, 
we  strolled  out  to  look  at  the  town.  It  is  situated  on  a  clear 
little  stream,  over  which  several  bathing-houses  are  built,  their 
posts  standing  in  the  midst  of  the  current.  Above  the  town, 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS. 


133 


it  flows  between  rocky  banks,  bordered  with  shrubs,  many  of 
them  in  flower.  Below  the  town,  after  winding  a  little  way, 
it  enters  a  cavern  yawning  in  the  limestone  rock,  immediately 
over  which  a  huge  ce'yba  rises,  and  stretches  its  leafy  arms  in 
mid-heaven.  Down  this  opening  the  river  throws  itself,  and 
is  never  seen  again.  This  is  not  a  singular  instance  in  Cuba. 
The  island  is  full  of  caverns  and  openings  in  the  rocks,  and  I 
am  told  that  many  of  the  streams  find  subterranean  passages 
to  the  sea.  There  is  a  well  at  the  inn  of  La  Punta  in  which 
a  roaring  of  water  is  constantly  heard.  It  is  the  sound  of  a 
subterranean  stream  rushing  along  a  passage  in  the  rocks,  and 
the  well  is  an  opening  into  its  roof.  In  passing  through  the 
town,  I  was  struck  with  the  neat  attire  of  those  who  inhabited 
the  humblest  dwellings.  At  the  door  of  one  of  the  cottages 
I  saw  a  group  of  children,  of  different  ages,  all  quite  pretty, 
with  oval  faces  and  glittering  black  eyes,  in  clean  fresh  dresses, 
which,  one  would  think,  could  scarcely  have  been  kept  a  mo- 
ment without  being  soiled  in  that  dwelling,  with  its  mud  floor. 
The  people  of  Cuba  are  sparing  in  their  ablutions;  the  men 
do  not  wash  their  faces  and  hands  till  nearly  mid-day,  for  fear 
of  spasms ;  and  of  the  women,  I  am  told  that  many  do  not 
wash  at  all,  contenting  themselves  with  rubbing  their  cheeks 
and  necks  with  a  little  aguardiente ;  but  the  passion  for  clean 
linen,  and,  among  the  men,  for  clean  white  pantaloons,  is  uni- 
versal. The  montero  himself,  on  a  holiday  or  any  public  occa- 
sion, will  sport  a  shirt  of  the  finest  linen,  smoothly  ironed  and 
stiffly  starched  throughout,  from  the  collar  downward. 

Los  GUINES,  APRIL  i8th:  In  the  long  circuit  of  railway 
which  leads  from  Havana  to  Matanzas  I  saw  nothing  remarka- 
bly different  from  what  I  observed  on  my  excursion  to  San 
Antonio.  There  was  the  same  smooth  country,  of  great  ap- 
parent fertility,  sometimes  varied  with  gentle  undulations,  and 
sometimes  rising,  in  the  distance,  into  hills  covered  with 
thickets.  We  swept  by  dark-green  fields  planted  with  the 
yucca,  an  esculent  root,  of  which  the  cassava-bread  is  made ; 
pale-green  fields  of  the  cane ;  brown  tracts  of  pasturage,  partly 


134 


SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 


formed  of  abandoned  coffee  estates,  where  the  palms  and 
scattered  fruit-trees  were  yet  standing,  and  forests  of  shrubs 
and  twining  plants  growing  for  the  most  part  among  rocks. 
Some  of  these  rocky  tracts  have  a  peculiar  appearance ;  they 
consist  of  rough  projections  of  rock  a  foot  or  two  in  height, 
of  irregular  shape  and  full  of  holes ;  they  are  called  diente  de 
perro,  or  dog's-teeth.  Here  the  trees  and  creepers  find  open- 
ings filled  with  soil,  by  which  they  are  nourished.  We  passed 
two  or  three  country  cemeteries,  where  that  foulest  of  birds, 
the  turkey-vulture,  was  seen  sitting  on  the  white  stuccoed 
walls,  or  hovering  on  his  ragged  wings  in  circles  over  them. 

In  passing  over  the  neighborhood  of  the  town  in  which  I 
am  now  writing,  I  found  myself  on  the  black  lands  of  the 
island.  Here  the  rich,  dark  earth  of  the  plain  lies  on  a  bed  of 
chalk  as  white  as  snow,  as  was  apparent  where  the  earth  had 
been  excavated  to  a  little  depth,  on  each  side  of  the  railway, 
to  form  the  causey  on  which  it  ran.  Streams  of  clear  water, 
diverted  from  a  river  to  the  left,  traversed  the  plain  with  a 
swift  current,  almost  even  with  the  surface  of  the  soil,  which 
they  kept  in  perpetual  freshness.  As  we  approached  Matanzas 
we  saw  more  extensive  tracts  of  cane  clothing  the  broad  slopes 
with  their  dense  blades,  as  if  the  coarse  sedge  of  a  river  had 
been  transplanted  to  the  uplands. 

At  length  the  bay  of  Matanzas  opened  before  us — a  long 
tract  of  water  stretching  to  the  northeast,  into  which  several 
rivers  empty  themselves.  The  town  lay  at  the  southwestern 
extremity,  sheltered  by  hills,  where  the  San  Juan  and  the 
Yumuri  pour  themselves  into  the  brine.  It  is  a  small  but 
prosperous  town,  with  a  considerable  trade,  as  was  indicated 
by  the  vessels  at  anchor  in  the  harbor. 

As  we  passed  along  the  harbor  I  remarked  an  extensive, 
healthy-looking  orchard  of  plantains  growing  on  one  of  those 
tracts  which  they  call  diente  de  perro.  I  could  see  nothing  but 
the  jagged  teeth  of  whitish  rock,  and  the  green,  swelling  stems 
of  the  plantain,  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  in  height,  and  as  large 
as  a  man's  leg,  or  larger.  The  stalks  of  the  plantain  are  juicy 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS.  135 

and  herbaceous,  and  of  so  yielding  a  texture  that  with  a  sickle 
you  might  entirely  sever  the  largest  of  them  at  a  single  stroke. 
How  such  a  multitude  of  succulent  plants  could  find  nourish- 
ment on  what  seemed  to  the  eye  little  else  than  barren  rock  I 
could  not  imagine. 

The  day  after  arriving  at  Matanzas  we  made  an  excursion 
on  horseback  to  the  summit  of  the  hill  immediately  overlook- 
ing the  town,  called  the  Cumbre.  Light,  hardy  horses  of  the 
country  were  brought  us,  with  high  pommels  to  the  saddles, 
which  are  also  raised  behind  in  a  manner  making  it  difficult 
to  throw  the  rider  from  his  seat.  A  negro  fitted  a  spur  to  my 
right  heel,  and,  mounting  by  the  short  stirrups,  I  crossed  the 
river  Yumuri  with  my  companions,  and  began  to  climb  the 
Cumbre.  They  boast  at  Matanzas  of  the  perpetual  coolness 
of  temperature  enjoyed  upon  the  broad  summit  of  this  hill, 
where  many  of  the  opulent  merchants  of  the  town  have  their 
country  houses,  to  which  the  mosquitoes  and  the  intermittents 
that  infest  the  town  below  never  come,  and  where,  as  one  of 
them  told  me,  you  may  play  at  billiards  in  August  without 
any  inconvenient  perspiration. 

From  the  Cumbre  you  behold  the  entire  extent  of  the  har- 
bor. The  town  lies  below  you,  with  its  thicket  of  masts  and 
its  dusty  fiasco,  where  rows  of  the  Cuba  pine  stand  rooted  in 
the  red  soil.  On  the  opposite  shore  your  eye  is  attracted  to 
a  chasm  between  high  rocks,  where  the  river  Canimar  comes 
forth  through  banks  of  romantic  beauty — so  they  are  described 
to  me — and  mingles  with  the  sea.  But  the  view  to  the  west 
was  much  finer ;  there  lay  the  valley  of  the  Yumuri,  and  a 
sight  of  it  is  worth  a  voyage  to  the  island.  In  regard  to  ^his, 
my  expectations  suffered  no  disappointment.  Before  me  lay 
a  deep  valley,  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  hills  and  mountains, 
with  the  little  river  Yumuri  twining  at  the  bottom.  Smooth, 
round  hillocks  rose  from  the  side  next  to  me,  covered  with 
clusters  of  palms,  and  the  steeps  of  the  southeastern  corner  of 
the  valley  were  clothed  with  a  wood  of  intense  green,  where 
I  could  almost  see  the  leaves  glisten  in  the  sunshine.  The 


•136  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

broad  fields  below  were  waving  with  cane  and  maize,  and 
cottages  of  the  monteros  were  scattered  among  them,  each  with 
its  tuft  of  bamboos  and  its  little  grove  of  plantains.  In  some 
parts  the  cliffs  almost  seemed  to  impend  over  the  valley  ;  but 
to  the  west,  in  a  soft  golden  haze,  rose  summit  behind  summit, 
and  over  them  all,  loftiest  and  most  remote,  towered  the 
mountain  called  the  Pan  de  Matanzas. 

We  stopped  for  a  few  moments  at  a  country  seat  on  the 
top  of  the  Cumbre,  where  this  beautiful  view  lay  ever  before 
the  eye.  Round  it,  in  a  garden,  were  cultivated  the  most 
showy  plants  of  the  tropics ;  but  my  attention  was  attracted  to 
a  little  plantation  of  damask  roses  blooming  profusely.  They 
were  scentless ;  the  climate  which  supplies  the  orange  blossom 
with  intense  odors  exhausts  the  fragrance  of  the  rose.  At 
nightfall — the  night  falls  suddenly  in  this  latitude — we  were 
again  at  our  hotel. 

We  passed  our  Sunday  on  a  sugar  estate,  at  the  hospit- 
able mansion  of  a  planter  from  the  United  States,  about 
fifteen  miles  from  Matanzas.  The  house  stands  on  an  emi- 
nence, once  embowered  in  trees  which  the  hurricanes  have 
levelled,  overlooking  a  broad  valley,  where  palms  were  scat- 
tered in  every  direction ;  for  the  estate  had  formerly  been  a 
coffee  plantation.  In  the  huge  buildings  containing  the  ma- 
chinery and  other  apparatus  for  making  sugar,  which  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  eminence,  the  power  of  steam,  which  had 
been  toiling  all  the  week,  was  now  at  rest.  As  the  hour  of 
sunset  approached,  a  smoke  was  seen  rising  from  its  chimney, 
presently  puffs  of  vapor  issued  from  the  engine,  its  motion 
began  to  be  heard,  and  the  negroes,  men  and  women,  were 
summoned  to  begin  the  work  of  the  week.  Some  fed  the  fire 
under  the  boiler  with  coal ;  others  were  seen  rushing  to  the 
mill  with  their  arms  full  of  the  stalks  of  the  cane,  freshly  cut, 
which  they  took  from  a  huge  pile  near  the  building ;  others 
lighted  fires,  under  a  row  of  huge  caldrons,  with  the  dry 
stalks  of  cane  from  which  the  juice  had  been  crushed  by  the 
mill.  It  was  a  spectacle  of  activity  such  as  I  had  not  seen  in 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  137 

Cuba.  The  sound  of  the  engine  was  heard  all  night,  for  the 
work  of  grinding  the  cane,  once  begun,  proceeds  day  and 
night,  with  the  exception  of  Sundays  and  some  other  holidays. 

I  was  early  next  morning  at  the  mill.  A  current  of  cane- 
juice  was  flowing  in  a  long  trunk  to  a  vat  in  which  it  was 
clarified  with  lime;  it  was  then  made  to  pass  successively 
from  one  seething  caldron  to  another,  as  it  obtained  a  thicker 
consistence  by  boiling.  The  negroes,  with  huge  ladles  turn- 
ing on  pivots,  swept  it  from  caldron  to  caldron,  and  finally 
passed  it  into  a  trunk,  which  conveyed  it  to  shallow  tanks  in 
another  apartment,  where  it  cooled  into  sugar.  From  these 
another  set  of  workmen  scooped  it  up  in  moist  masses,  carried 
it  in  buckets  up  a  low  flight  of  stairs,  and  poured  it  into  rows 
of  hogsheads  pierced  with  holes  at  the  bottom.  These  are 
placed  over  a  large  tank,  into  which  the  moisture  dripping 
from  the  hogsheads  is  collected  and  forms  molasses. 

This  is  the  method  of  making  the  sugar  called  Muscovado. 
It  is  drained  a  few  days,  and  then  the  railways  take  it  to  Ma- 
tanzas  or  to  Havana.  We  visited  afterward  a  plantation  in 
the  neighborhood  in  which  clayed  sugar  is  made.  Our  host 
furnished  us  with  horses  to  make  the  excursion,  and  we  took  a 
winding  road,  over  hill  and  valley,  by  plantations  and  forests, 
till  we  stopped  at  the  gate  of  an  extensive  pasture-ground. 
An  old  negro,  whose  hut  was  at  hand,  opened  it  for  us,  and 
bowed  low  as  we  passed.  A  ride  of  half  a  mile  farther 
brought  us  in  sight  of  the  cane-fields  of  the  plantation  called 
Saratoga,  belonging  to  the  house  of  Drake  &  Company,  of 
Havana,  and  reputed  one  of  the  finest  on  the  island.  It  had 
a  different  aspect  from  any  plantation  we  had  seen.  Trees 
and  shrubs  there  were  none,  but  the  canes,  except  where  they 
had  been  newly  cropped  for  the  mill,  clothed  the  slopes  and 
hollows  with  their  light-green  blades,  like  the  herbage  of  a 
prairie. 

We  were  kindly  received  by  the  administrator  of  the  estate, 
an  intelligent  Biscayan,  who  showed  us  the  whole  process  of 
making  clayed  sugar.  It  does  not  differ  from  that  of  making 


138  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

the  Muscovado,  so  far  as  concerns  the  grinding  and  boiling. 
When,  however,  the  sugar  is  nearly  cool,  it  is  poured  into  iron 
vessels  of  conical  shape,  with  the  point  downward,  at  which  is 
an  opening.  The  top  of  the  sugar  is  then  covered  with  a  sort 
of  black,  thick  mud,  which  they  call  clay,  and  which  is  several 
times  renewed  as  it  becomes  dry.  The  moisture  from  the 
clay  passes  through  the  sugar,  carrying  with  it  the  cruder 
portions,  which  form  molasses.  In  a  few  days  the  draining  is 
complete.  We  saw  the  work-people  of  the  Saratoga  estate 
preparing  for  the  market  the  sugar  thus  cleansed,  if  we  may 
apply  the  word  to  such  a  process.  With  a  rude  iron  blade 
they  cleft  the  large  loaf  of  sugar  just  taken  from  the  mould 
into  three  parts,  called  first,  second,  and  third  quality,  accord- 
ing to  their  whiteness.  These  are  dried  in  the  sun  on  separate 
platforms  of  wood  with  a  raised  edge,  the  women  standing 
and  walking  over  the  fragments  with  their  bare,  dirty  feet,  and 
beating  them  smaller  with  wooden  mallets  and  clubs.  The 
sugar  of  the  first  quality  is  then  scraped  up  and  put  into 
boxes ;  that  of  the  second  and  third,  being  moister,  is  handled 
a  third  time  and  carried  into  the  drying-room,  where  it  is  ex- 
posed to  the  heat  of  a  stove,  and,  when  sufficiently  dry,  is 
boxed  up  for  market  like  the  other. 

The  sight  of  these  processes  was  not  of  a  nature  to  make 
one  think  with  much  satisfaction  of  clayed  sugar  as  an  ingredi- 
ent of  food,  but  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  are  superior  to 
such  prejudices,  and  use  it  with  as  little  scruple  as  they  who 
do  not  know  in  what  manner  it  is  made.  In  the  afternoon  we 
returned  to  the  dwelling  of  our  American  host,  and,  taking 
the  train  at  Caobas,  or  Mahogany  Trees — so  called  from  the 
former  growth  of  that  tree  on  the  spot — we  were  at  Matanzas 
an  hour  afterward.  The  next  morning  the  train  brought  us 
to  this  little  town,  situated  half  way  between  Matanzas  and 
Havana,  but  a  considerable  distance  to  the  south  of  either. 

HAVANA,  APRIL  22d:  The  other  day,  when  we  were  at 
Guines,  we  heard  that  a  negro  was  to  suffer  death  early  the 
next  morning  by  the  garrote,  an  instrument  by  which  the  neck 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS.  !39 

of  the  criminal  is  broken  and  life  extinguished  in  an  instant. 
I  asked  our  landlady  for  what  crime  the  man  had  been  con- 
demned. "  He  has  killed  his  master,"  she  replied,  "  an  old 
man,  in  his  bed."  "  Had  he  received  any  provocation  ? " 
"  Not  that  I  have  heard ;  but  another  slave  is  to  be  put  to 
death  by  the  garrote  in  about  a  fortnight  whose  offence  had 
some  palliation.  His  master  was  a  man  of  harsh  temper,  and 
treated  his  slaves  with  extreme  severity ;  the  negro  watched 
his  opportunity,  and  shot  him  as  he  sat  at  table." 

We  went  to  the  place  of  execution  a  little  before  eight 
o'clock,  and  found  the  preparations  already  made.  A  platform 
had  been  erected,  on  which  stood  a  seat  for  the  prisoner,  and 
back  of  the  seat  a  post  was  fixed,  with  a  sort  of  iron  collar  for 
his  neck.  A  screw,  with  a  long  transverse  handle  on  the  side 
of  the  post  opposite  to  the  collar,  was  so  contrived  that,  when 
it  was  turned,  it  would  push  forward  an  iron  bolt  against  the 
back  of  the  neck  and  crush  the  spine  at  once.  Sentinels  in 
uniform  were  walking  to  and  fro,  keeping  the  spectators  at  a 
distance  from  the  platform.  The  heat  of  the  sun  was  intense, 
for  the  sea-breeze  had  not  yet  sprung  up,  but  the  crowd  had 
begun  to  assemble.  As  near  to  the  platform  as  they  could 
come  stood  a  group  of  young  girls,  two  of  whom  were  dressed 
in  white,  and  one  was  pretty,  with  no  other  shade  for  their 
dusky  faces  than  their  black  veils,  chatting  and  laughing  and 
stealing  occasional  glances  at  the  new-comers.  In  another 
quarter  were  six  or  eight  monteros  on  horseback,  in  their  in- 
variable costume  of  Panama  hats,  shirts,  and  pantaloons,  with 
holsters  to  their  saddles,  and  most  of  them  with  swords  lashed 
to  their  sides.  About  half-past  eight  a  numerous  crowd  made 
its  appearance  coming  from  the  town.  Among  them  walked, 
with  a  firm  step,  a  large  black  man,  dressed  in  a  long  white 
frock,  white  pantaloons,  and  a  white  cap  with  a  long  peak 
which  fell  backward  on  his  shoulders.  He  was  the  murderer ; 
his  hands  were  tied  together  by  the  wrists ;  in  one  of  them  he 
held  a  crucifix ;  the  rope  by  which  they  were  fastened  was 
knotted  around  his  waist,  and  the  end  of  it  was  held  by  another 

VOL.   II.— 10 


140 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


athletic  negro,  dressed  in  blue  cotton  with  white  facings,  who 
walked  behind  him.  On  the  left  of  the  criminal  walked  an 
officer  of  justice ;  on  his  right  an  ecclesiastic,  slender  and  stoop- 
ing, in  a  black  gown  and  a  black  cap,  the  top  of  which  was 
formed  into  a  sort  of  coronet,  exhorting  the  criminal,  in  a  loud 
voice  and  with  many  gesticulations,  to  repent  and  trust  in  the 
mercy  of  God.  When  they  reached  the  platform  the  negro 
was  made  to  place  himself  on  his  knees  before  it,  the  priest 
continuing  his  exhortations,  and  now  and  then  clapping  him, 
in  an  encouraging  manner,  on  the  shoulder.  I  saw  the  man 
shake  his  head  once  or  twice,  and  then  kiss  the  crucifix.  In 
the  mean  time  a  multitude,  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes,  took 
possession  of  the  places  from  which  the  spectacle  could  be  best 
seen.  A  stone-fence,  such  as  is  common  in  our  country,  formed 
of  loose  stones  taken  from  the  surface  of  the  ground,  upheld 
a  long  row  of  spectators.  A  well-dressed  couple,  a  gentleman 
in  white  pantaloons,  and  a  lady  elegantly  attired,  with  a  black 
lace  veil  and  a  parasol,  bringing  their  two  children  and  two 
colored  servants,  took  their  station  by  my  side;  the  elder 
child  found  a  place  on  the  top  of  the  fence,  and  the  younger, 
about  four  years  of  age,  was  lifted  in  the  arms  of  one  of  the 
servants,  that  it  might  have  the  full  benefit  of  the  spectacle. 
The  criminal  was  then  raised  from  the  ground,  and,  going  up 
on  the  platform,  took  the  seat  ready  for  him.  The  priest  here 
renewed  his  exhortations,  and  at  length,  turning  to  the  audi- 
ence, said,  in  a  loud  voice :  "  I  believe  in  God  Almighty  and 
in  Jesus  Christ  his  only  Son,  and  it  grieves  me  to  the  heart  to 
have  offended  them."  These  words,  I  suppose,  were  meant, 
as  the  confession  of  the  criminal,  to  be  repeated  after  the 
priest,  but  I  heard  no  response  from  his  lips.  Again  and 
again  the  priest  repeated  them,  the  third  time  with  a  louder 
voice  than  ever ;  the  signal  was  then  given  to  the  executioner. 
The  iron  collar  was  adjusted  to  the  neck  of  the  victim  and 
fastened  under  the  chin.  The  athletic  negro  in  blue,  standing 
behind  the  post,  took  the  handle  of  the  screw  and  turned  it 
deliberately.  After  a  few  turns  the  criminal  gave  a  sudden 


CUBA  AND    THE  CUBANS. 


141 


shrug  of  the  shoulders;  another  turn  of  the  screw,  and  a 
shudder  ran  over  his  whole  frame,  his  eyes  rolled  wildly,  his 
hands,  still  tied  with  the  rope,  were  convulsively  jerked  up- 
ward, and  then  dropped  back  to  their  place  motionless  forever. 
The  priest  advanced  and  turned  the  peak  of  the  white  cap 
over  the  face  to  hide  it  from  the  sight  of  the  multitude. 

I  had  never  seen,  and  never  intended  to  see,  an  execution ; 
but  the  strangeness  of  this  manner  of  inflicting  death,  and  the 
desire  to  witness  the  behavior  of  an  assembly  of  the  people  of 
Cuba  on  such  an  occasion,  had  overcome  my  previous  deter- 
mination. The  horror  of  the  spectacle  now  caused  me  to 
regret  that  I  made  one  of  a  crowd  drawn  to  look  at  it  by 
an  idle  curiosity.  The  negro  in  blue  next  stepped  forward 
and  felt  the  limbs  of  the  dead  man  one  by  one,  to  ascertain 
whether  life  were  wholly  extinct,  and  then  returning  to  the 
screw,  gave  it  two  or  three  turns  more,  as  if  to  make  his  work 
sure.  In  the  mean  time  my  attention  was  attracted  by  a  sound 
like  that  of  a  light  buffet  and  a  whimpering  voice  near  me.  I 
looked,  and  two  men  were  standing  by  me,  with  a  little  white 
boy  at  their  side,  and  a  black  boy  of  nearly  the  same  age  be- 
fore them,  holding  his  hat  in  his  hand  and  crying.  They 
were  endeavoring  to  direct  his  attention  to  what  they  consid- 
ered the  wholesome  spectacle  before  him.  "Mira,  mira,  no  te 
hard  dafto"  *  said  the  men,  but  the  boy  steadily  refused  to  look 
in  that  direction,  though  he  was  evidently  terrified  by  some 
threat  of  punishment,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Finding 
him  obstinate,  they  desisted  from  their  purpose,  and  I  was 
quite  edified  to  see  the  little  fellow  continue  to  look  away  from 
the  spectacle  which  attracted  all  other  eyes  but  his.  The 
white  boy  now  came  forward,  touched  the  hat  of  the  little 
black,  and,  good-naturedly  saying  "pontelo,pontelo"  f  made  him 
put  it  on  his  head.  The  crowd  now  began  to  disperse,  and  in 
twenty  minutes  the  place  was  nearly  solitary,  except  the  senti- 
nels pacing  backward  and  forward.  Two  hours  afterward 

*  "  Look,  look,  it  will  do  you  no  harm."  f  "  Put  it  on,  put  it  on." 


I42  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

the  sentinels  were  pacing  there  yet,  and  the  dead  man,  in  his 
white  dress  and  iron  collar,  was  still  in  his  seat  on  the  plat- 
form. 

It  is  generally  the  natives  of  Africa  by  whom  these  mur- 
ders are  committed  ;  the  negroes  born  in  the  country  are  of  a 
more  yielding  temper.  They  have  better  learned  the  art  of 
avoiding  punishment,  and  submit  to  it  more  patiently  when 
inflicted,  having  understood  from  their  birth  that  it  is  one  of 
the  conditions  of  their  existence.  The  whip  is  always  in  sight. 
"  Nothing  can  be  done  without  it,"  said  an  Englishman  to  me, 
who  had  lived  eleven  years  on  the  island  ;  "  you  cannot  make 
the  negroes  work  by  the  mild  methods  which  are  used  by 
slave-holders  in  the  United  States ;  the  blacks  there  are  far  more 
intelligent,  and  more  easily  governed  by  moral  means."  Afri- 
cans, the  living  witnesses  of  the  present  existence  of  the  slave- 
trade,  are  seen  everywhere ;  at  every  step  you  meet  blacks 
whose  cheeks  are  scarred  with  parallel  slashes,  with  which 
they  were  marked  in  the  African  slave-market,  and  who  can 
not  even  speak  the  mutilated  Spanish  current  in  the  mouths 
of  the  Cuban  negroes. 

One  day  I  stood  upon  the  quay  at  Matanzas  and  saw  the 
slaves  unloading  the  large  lighters  which  brought  goods  from 
the  Spanish  ships  lying  in  the  harbor — casks  of  wine,  jars  of 
oil,  bags  of  nuts,  barrels  of  flour.  The  men  were  naked  to  the 
hips,  their  only  garment  being  a  pair  of  trousers.  I  admired 
their  ample  chests,  their  massive  shoulders,  the  full  and  mus- 
cular proportions  of  their  arms,  and  the  ease  with  which  they 
shifted  the  heavy  articles  from  place  to  place,  or  carried  them 
on  their  heads.  "  Some  of  these  are  Africans  ?  "  I  said  to  a 
gentleman  who  resided  on  the  island.  "  They  are  all  Afri- 
cans," he  answered,  "  Africans  to  a  man ;  the  negro  born  in 
Cuba  is  of  a  lighter  make." 

When  I  was  at  Guines  I  went  out  to  look  at  a  sugar  estate 
in  the  neighborhood,  where  the  mill  was  turned  by  water, 
which  a  long  aqueduct,  from  one  of  the  streams  that  traverse 
the  plain,  conveyed  over  arches  of  stone  so  broad  and  massive 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  143 

that  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  aqueducts  of  Rome.  A 
gang  of  black  women  were  standing  in  the  secadero,  or  drying- 
place,  among  the  lumps  of  clayed  sugar,  beating  them  small 
with  mallets ;  before  them  walked  to  and  fro  the  major-domo, 
with  a  cutlass  by  his  side  and  a  whip  in  his  hand.  I  asked  him 
how  a  planter  could  increase  his  stock  of  slaves.  "  There  is 
no  difficulty,"  he  replied  ;  "  slaves  are  still  brought  to  the  island 
from  Africa.  The  other  day  five  hundred  were  landed  on  the 
sea-shore  to  the  south  of  this ;  for  you  must  know,  senor,  that  we 
are  but  three  or  four  leagues  from  the  coast."  "  Was  it  done 
openly?"  I  inquired.  "  Publicamente,  senor,  publicamente ;  * 
they  were  landed  on  the  sugar  estate  of  El  Pastor,  and  one 
hundred  and  seven  more  died  on  the  passage  from  Africa." 
"  Did  the  government  know  of  it  ?  "  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  "  Of  course  the  government  knows  it,"  said  he ; 
"  everybody  else  knows  it."  The  truth  is,  that  the  slave-trade 
is  now  fully  revived,  the  government  conniving  at  it,  making 
a  profit  on  the  slaves  imported  from  Africa,  and  screening 
from  the  pursuit  of  the  English  the  pirates  who  bring  them. 
There  could  scarcely  be  any  arrangement  of  coast  more  favor- 
able for  smuggling  slaves  into  a  country  than  the  islands  and 
long  peninsulas  and  many  channels  of  the  southern  shore  of 
Cuba.  Here  the  mangrove  thickets,  sending  down  roots  into 
the  brine  from  their  long  branches  that  stretch  over  the  water, 
form  dense  screens  on  each  side  of  the  passages  from  the  main 
ocean  to  the  inland,  and  render  it  easy  for  the  slaver  and  his 
boats  to  lurk  undiscovered  by  the  English  men-of-war. 

During  the  comparative  cessation  of  the  slave-trade  a  few 
years  since,  the  negroes,  I  have  been  told,  were  much  better 
treated  than  before.  They  rose  in  value,  and  when  they  died 
it  was  found  not  easy  to  supply  their  places ;  they  were  there- 
fore made  much  of,  and  everything  was  done  which  it  was 
thought  would  tend  to  preserve  their  health  and  maintain 
them  in  bodily  vigor.  If  the  slave-trade  should  make  them 

*  "  Publicly,  sir,  publicly." 


144 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


cheap  again,  their  lives,  of  course,  will  be  of  less  consequence 
to  their  owners,  and  they  will  be  subject  again  to  be  over- 
tasked, as  it  has  been  said  they  were  before.  There  is  certainly 
great  temptation  to  wear  them  out  in  the  sugar  mills,  which 
are  kept  in  motion  day  and  night  during  half  the  year — namely, 
through  the  dry  season.  "  If  this  was  not  the  healthiest  em- 
ployment in  the  world,"  said  an  overseer  to  me  on  one  of  the 
sugar  estates,  "  it  would  kill  us  all  who  are  engaged  in  it,  both 
black  and  white." 

Perhaps  you  may  not  know  that  more  than  half  of  the 
island  of  Cuba  has  never  been  reduced  to  tillage.  Immense 
tracts  of  the  rich  black  or  red  mould  of  the  island,  accumu- 
lated on  the  coral  rock,  are  yet  waiting  the  hand  of  the  planter 
to  be  converted  into  profitable  sugar  estates.  There  is  a  de- 
mand, therefore,  for  laborers  on  the  part  of  those  who  wish  to 
become  planters,  and  this  demand  is  supplied  not  only  from 
the  coast  of  Africa,  but  from  the  American  continent  and 
southwestern  Asia. 

In  one  of  the  afternoons  of  Holy  Week  I  saw  amid  the 
crowd  on  the  Plaza  de  Armas,  in  Havana,  several  men  of  low 
stature,  of  a  deep-olive  complexion,  beardless,  with  high  cheek- 
bones and  straight  black  hair,  dressed  in  white  pantaloons  of 
cotton,  and  shirts  of  the  same  material  worn  over  them.  They 
were  Indians,  natives  of  Yucatan,  who  had  been  taken  prison- 
ers of  war  by  the  whites  of  the  country  and  sold  to  white  men 
in  Cuba,  under  a  pretended  contract  to  serve  for  a  certain 
number  of  years.  I  afterward  learned  that  the  dealers  in  this 
sort  of  merchandise  were  also  bringing  in  the  natives  of  Asia, 
Chinese  they  call  them  here,  though  I  doubt  whether  they 
belong  to  that  nation,  and  disposing  of  their  services  to  the 
planters.  There  are  six  hundred  of  these  people,  I  have  been 
told,  in  this  city.  Yesterday  appeared  in  the  Havana  papers 
an  ordinance  concerning  the  "  Indians  and  Asiatics  imported 
into  the  country  under  a  contract  to  labor."  It  directs  how 
much  Indian  corn,  how  many  plantains,  how  much  jerked-pork 
and  rice,  they  shall  receive  daily,  and  how  many  lashes  the 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS.  145 

master  may  inflict  for  misbehavior.  Twelve  stripes  with  the 
cow-skin  he  may  administer  for  the  smaller  offences,  and 
twenty-four  for  transgressions  of  more  importance ;  but  if  any 
more  become  necessary,  he  must  apply  to  a  magistrate  for 
permission  to  lay  them  on.  Such  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
government  of  Cuba  sanctions  the  barbarity  of  making  slaves 
of  the  free-born  men  of  Yucatan.  The  ordinance,  however, 
betrays  great  concern  for  the  salvation  of  the  souls  of  those 
whom  it  thus  delivers  over  to  the  lash  of  the  slave-driver.  It 
speaks  of  the  Indians  from  America  as  Christians  already; 
but,  while  it  allows  the  slaves  imported  from  Asia  to  be 
flogged,  it  directs  that  they  shall  be  carefully  instructed  in  the 
doctrines  of  our  holy  religion. 

Yet  the  policy  of  the  government  favors  emancipation. 
The  laws  of  Cuba  permit  any  slave  to  purchase  his  freedom 
on  paying  a  price  fixed  by  three  persons,  one  appointed  by 
his  master  and  two  by  a  magistrate.  He  may  also,  if  he 
pleases,  compel  his  master  to  sell  him  a  certain  portion  of  his 
time,  which  he  may  employ  to  earn  the  means  of  purchasing 
his  entire  freedom.  It  is  owing  to  this,  I  suppose,  that  the 
number  of  free  blacks  is  so  large  in  the  island,  and  it  is  mani- 
fest that  if  the  slave-trade  could  be  checked,  and  these  laws 
remain  unaltered,  the  negroes  would  gradually  emancipate 
themselves — all  at  least  who  would  be  worth  keeping  as  ser- 
vants. The  population  of  Cuba  is  now  about  a  million  and  a 
quarter,  rather  more  than  half  of  whom  are  colored  persons, 
and  one  out  of  every  four  of  the  colored  population  is  free. 
The  mulattoes  emancipate  themselves  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  some  of  them  become  rich  by  the  occupations  they  fol- 
low. The  prejudice  of  color  is  by  no  means  so  strong  here 
as  in  the  United  States.  Five  or  six  years  since,  the  negroes 
were  shouting  and  betting  in  the  cock-pits  with  the  whites ; 
but  since  the  mulatto  insurrection,  as  it  is  called,  in  1843, 
the  law  forbids  their  presence  at  such  amusements.  I  am 
told  there  is  little  difficulty  in  smuggling  people  of  mixed 
blood,  by  the  help  of  legal  forms,  into  the  white  race,  and,  if 


146  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

they  are  rich,  into  good  society,  provided  their  hair  is  not 
frizzled. 

You  hear  something  said  now  and  then  in  the  United 
States  concerning  the  annexation  of  Cuba  to  our  confederacy ; 
you  may  be  curious,  perhaps,  to  know  what  they  say  of  it 
here.  A  European  who  had  long  resided  in  the  island  gave 
me  this  account :  "  The  Creoles,  no  doubt,  would  be  very  glad 
to  see  Cuba  annexed  to  the  United  States,  and  many  of  them 
ardently  desire  it.  It  would  relieve  them  from  many  great 
burdens  they  now  bear,  open  their  commerce  to  the  world, 
rid  them  of  a  tyrannical  government,  and  allow  them  to  man- 
age their  own  affairs  in  their  own  way.  But  Spain  derives 
from  the  possession  of  Cuba  advantages  too  great  to  be  relin- 
quished. She  extracts  from  Cuba  a  revenue  of  twelve  mill- 
ions of  dollars  ;  her  government  sends  its  needy  nobility,  and 
all  for  whom  it  would  provide,  to  fill  lucrative  offices  in  Cuba 
— the  priests,  the  military  officers,  the  civil  authorities,  every 
man  who  fills  a  judicial  post  or  holds  a  clerkship,  is  from  old 
Spain.  The  Spanish  government  dares  not  give  up  Cuba  if 
it  were  inclined.  Nor  will  the  people  of  Cuba  make  any  effort 
to  emancipate  themselves  by  taking  up  arms.  The  struggle 
with  the  power  of  Spain  would  be  bloody  and  uncertain,  even 
if  the  white  population  were  united ;  but  the  mutual  distrust 
with  which  the  planters  and  the  peasantry  regard  each  other 
would  make  the  issue  of  such  an  enterprise  still  more  doubt- 
ful. At  present  it  would  not  be  safe  for  a  Cuban  planter  to 
speak  publicly  of  annexation  to  the  United  States.  He  would 
run  the  risk  of  being  imprisoned  or  exiled." 

Of  course,  if  Cuba  were  to  be  annexed  to  the  United 
States,  the  slave-trade  with  Africa  would  cease  to  be  carried 
on  as  now,  though  its  perfect  suppression  might  be  found 
difficult.  Negroes  would  be  imported  in  large  numbers  from 
the  United  States,  and  planters  would  emigrate  with  them. 
Institutions  of  education  would  be  introduced,  commerce  and 
religion  would  both  be  made  free,  and  the  character  of  the 
islanders  would  be  elevated  by  the  responsibilities  which  a 


CUBA  AND   THE  CUBANS. 


147 


free  government  would  throw  upon  them.  The  planters,  how- 
ever, would  doubtless  adopt  regulations  insuring  the  per- 
petuity of  slavery;  they  would  unquestionably,  as  soon  as  they 
were  allowed  to  frame  ordinances  for  the  island,  take  away 
the  facilities  which  the  present  laws  give  the  slave  for  effecting 
his  own  emancipation. 


A  VISIT  TO  MEXICO. 


MEXICO,  MARCH  6, 1872 :  Our  voyage  from  Havana  to  Vera 
Cruz  was  in  all  respects  a  holiday.  The  temperature  was 
most  agreeable,  the  airs  the  softest  that  ever  blew,  the  sea 
like  a  looking-glass,  and  the  steamer — the  British  steamer  Cor- 
sica— comfortable  and  roomy.  In  a  little  more  than  three  days 
we  were  anchored  in  the  harbor  of  Vera  Cruz,  in  the  middle  of 
the  night.  The  morning  showed  us  the  city,  somewhat  pic- 
turesque in  its  aspect,  with  its  spires  and  stuccoed  houses,  and 
with  its  ancient  fort  on  a  little  isle  in  front  of  it.  A  range  of 
blue  mountains  lay  to  the  west,  and  high  above  these  the  peak 
of  Orizaba,  white  with  perpetual  snow,  was  seen  among  the 
clouds.  I  was  told  that  the  captain  of  the  port  desired  to 
speak  with  me ;  and,  meeting  him,  was  informed  that,  by  direc- 
tion of  the  Minister  of  Finance,  he  had  come  with  the  govern- 
ment boat  to  take  me  and  my  party  to  town.  We  landed  at  a 
wharf  against  which  the  sea  was  beating  with  its  gentlest  rip- 
ples, but  this  is  not  always  its  mood.  When  a  strong  north 
wind  blows,  it  rolls  up  vast  waves,  beginning  at  the  coast  of 
Louisiana  and  Florida,  and  sweeps  them  into  the  roadstead 
before  Vera  Cruz.  The  surf  is  hurled  against  the  sea-wall  that 
protects  the  city,  and  the  outer  streets  are  drenched  with  the 
spray.  No  vessel  can  then  discharge  or  receive  its  cargo,  and 
it  often  happens  that  several  days  elapse  before  there  can  be  a 
communication  between  ship  and  shore.  The  harbor  at  Tarn- 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  149 

pico  is  no  better ;  indeed,  it  is  said  to  be  worse,  and  equally 
exposed  to  the  fury  of  the  northers.  In  fact,  there  is  no  good 
harbor  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Mexico,  and  the  proper  com- 
munication between  that  country  and  all  others  that  lie  to  the 
east  of  it  must  be  by  means  of  railways  and  through  the 
United  States,  unless,  indeed,  the  Mexican  government  should 
build  artificial  harbors  for  its  towns  on  the  coast,  an  under- 
taking for  which  it  has  no  money.  Yet,  I  am  told,  there  is  a 
pretty  good  harbor  at  Anton  Lizardo,  less  than  twenty  miles 
south  of  Vera  Cruz,  but  at  Anton  Lizardo  there  is  no  town. 
Moreover,  there  is  the  yellow  fever,  which  broods  almost  per- 
petually over  the  towns  on  the  low  coasts.  At  Vera  Cruz 
they  told  me  that  the  place  was  never  without  it ;  but  they 
made  light  of  the  distemper,  as  a  sort  of  seasoning  process 
which  every  stranger  residing  there  for  three  months  must 
assuredly  go  through. 

But  the  far  greater  part  of  the  republic  of  Mexico  consists 
of  high  table-lands.  "  Nine  tenths  of  our  country,"  said  a 
Mexican  gentleman  to  me,  "  belongs  to  what  we  call  the  tierra 
templada — the  region  which  produces  the  harvests  of  the  tem- 
perate zones."  Perhaps  this  is  an  excessive  estimate,  but  no 
one  who  has  the  map  of  that  country  before  him  can  fail  to  see 
that  a  railway,  beginning  at  our  own  frontier,  might  convey  the 
traveller  from  one  cool  upland  valley  to  another,  till  it  landed 
him,  almost  without  a  consciousness  that  he  was  under  a  trop- 
ical sun,  in  the  capital  of  the  republic.  This  will  yet  be  the  prin- 
cipal means  of  communication  between  the  two  countries. 

"  You  will  find  Vera  Cruz  a  dirty,  miserable  place,"  said 
the  bluff  English  commander  of  our  steamer,  the  Corsica ;  but 
he  did  it  injustice.  The  city  lies  low,  and  is  under  the  sus- 
picion of  being  badly  drained,  but  the  streets  are  a  great  deal 
cleaner  than  those  of  New  York,  and  the  black  vultures,  which 
are  seen  hopping  about  them  or  sitting  by  scores  on  the  cupo- 
las of  its  churches,  devour  everything  above  ground  that  can 
corrupt  in  the  heat  and  poison  the  air.  The  dwellings  and 
warehouses  are  necessarily  built  each  of  two  stories  around  a 


150  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

square  court;  they  have  lofty  ceilings,  spacious  rooms  and 
airy  galleries,  the  sitting-rooms  so  arranged  as  to  admit  the 
fresh  sea-breeze  that  comes  in  from  the  harbor. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  were  on  the  railway  which  is 
partly  constructed  from  Vera  Cruz  to  the  city  of  Mexico. 
It  was  a  somewhat  dreary  road  for  the  first  fifty  miles,  yet  not 
without  its  interest.  The  iron  track  swept  by  a  circuitous 
course  through  vast  grazing-grounds  of  a  russet  hue,  thinly 
set  with  low  trees,  yet  leafless  for  the  most  part,  but  now  and 
then  blossoming  with  great  strange  flowers,  bright  yellow,  or 
pink,  or  crimson.  Here  and  there  we  passed  a  village  of  the 
aborigines,  in  which  the  dwellings  were  mere  wigwams,  built 
with  four  stout  posts  sustaining  a  roof  thatched  with  coarse 
grass  or  leaves  of  the  aloe.  The  walls  of  these  cabins  were 
rows  of  sticks  or  reeds,  set  in  the  ground  so  thinly  as  scarce 
to  afford  a  shelter  from  the  wind.  There  were  a  few  houses 
of  more  pretension,  built  of  sun-dried  bricks  whitewashed, 
and  roofed  with  coarse  tiles.  The  brown  inhabitants,  a  race 
of  rather  low  stature,  but  square  built,  loitered  in  the  simplest 
possible  attire  about  their  dwellings,  the  women,  for  the  most 
part,  sitting  on  the  ground  at  their  doors.  It  could  be  seen 
at  once  that  they  were  a  people  of  few  wants,  and  that  these 
wants  were  easily  supplied. 

About  fifty  miles  from  Vera  Cruz  the  country  began  to 
wear  a  different  aspect.  There  were  tokens  of  irrigation,  or 
at  least  of  more  frequent  rains,  in  this  the  dry  section ;  the 
trees  and  shrubs  were  all  in  leaf,  and  there  were  fields  green 
with  harvests,  and  plantations  of  the  banana.  As  we  went  on 
we  found  ourselves  on  the  border  of  a  stream  flowing  in  a 
deep  ravine,  between  almost  perpendicular  banks,  hundreds  of 
yards  below  us.  A  tall  forest  rose  on  each  side,  the  trees 
sprouting  with  half  a  dozen  parasitic  plants,  some  of  which 
were  in  bloom.  The  castor-bean  grew  by  the  track  to  the  size 
of  a  tree,  and  the  morning-glory,  which  here  never  feels  the 
frost,  climbed  the  trees  and  tied  her  blue  or  crimsoned  blos- 
soms to  the  branches  a  hundred  feet  from  the  ground. 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  151 

We  stopped  at  the  present  termination  of  the  railway, 
seventy  miles  from  Vera  Cruz,  at  a  place  called  Fortin,  from 
which  we  were  taken  by  a  diligence  to  the  city  of  Orizaba, 
situated  among  sugar  estates,  orange  gardens,  and  coffee 
plantations.  We  had  heard  stories  of  robberies  committed  on 
the  road  between  Vera  Cruz  and  Mexico,  and  we  did  not  feel 
quite  sure  that  they  were  not  the  mere  echo  of  what  had  hap- 
pened some  time  since  ;  but  here  at  Orizaba  the  landlord  of 
our  hotel  told  us  of  a  recent  incident  of  the  kind.  "  If  you  go 
on,"  he  said,  "  you  will  stop  for  the  night  at  San  Agustin  de 
Palmar.  Not  far  from  that  place,  two  or  three  days  since,  the 
diligence  was  stopped,  and  two  passengers,  a  Mr.  Foote  and 
companion,  were  robbed  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  their 
trunks,  and  all  the  valuables  they  had  with  them."  It  there- 
fore became  a  question  whether  it  was  prudent  for  us  to  pro- 
ceed. We  consulted  together,  and,  concluding  that  the  robbers 
would  not  be  likely  to  repeat  their  crime  immediately,  we  de- 
termined to  go  on.  We  threaded  the  long  valley  in  which 
Orizaba  lies,  passing  between  banana  patches  and  hedges  in 
which  the  finest  roses  were  in  bloom,  and  beside  little  rivulets 
running  by  the  wayside  to  water  the  fields.  There  are  points 
in  Orizaba  commanding  some  of  the  most  beautiful  views  of 
mountain  scenery  that  ever  met  my  eyes — summits,  crests, 
ridges,  spurs  of  mountains,  interlocking  each  other,  with  vaL 
leys  penetrating  far  between,  the  haunt  of  eternal  spring,  with 
the  peak  of  Orizaba  overlooking  out  from  the  region  of  eter- 
nal winter. 

Coming  to  where  the  mountains  bounded  the  valley  at  its 
western  end,  our  vehicle  ascended  what  are  called  the  Heights 
of  Aculcingo  by  a  zigzag  path  cut  in  the  rocks,  and  in  one 
place  crossed  by  a  pretty  waterfall.  These  heights  are  famed 
for  the  fine  views  they  afford  of  the  gulfy  valleys  below  and 
the  great  mountain  buttresses  one  behind  another.  But  of 
these  we  had  little  more  than  a  glimpse,  for  the  mist  gathered 
round  us,  and  the  darkness  fell.  A  man  who  sat  at  the  left 
hand  of  the  driver  of  the  diligence  lighted  a  rope  of  combus- 


152  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

ttbles,  which  served  for  a  torch  to  light  our  way.  And  this 
was  soon  shown  to  be  necessary,  for  the  road,  which  since  we 
left  Fortin  had  been  for  the  most  part  a  good  macadamized 
highway,  became  one  of  the  worst  on  which  I  ever  travelled. 
The  track  was  full  of  inequalities ;  it  lay  deep  in  fine  dust, 
which  concealed  them  from  sight ;  and  we  plunged  from  one 
to  another  with  fearful  jolts,  which  almost  seemed  as  if  they 
would  shake  the  old  diligence  to  fragments.  We  drove  on  in 
a  cloud  of  white  dust,  surrounding  us  at  every  step.  I  have 
never  seen  our  good  old  mother,  the  Earth,  under  a  more 
ghastly  aspect  than  that  which  she  wore  in  the  light  of  our 
torch.  Everything  looked  white — the  road,  the  banks,  the 
fields,  as  far  as  we  could  see  on  each  side — and  the  vegetation 
which  bordered  our  way  was  of  the  ugliest  and  grimmest 
that  the  earth  produces :  cactuses,  with  their  angular  and  un- 
shapely growth,  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  in  height ;  the  stiff  and 
pointed  leaves  of  the  maguey ',  or  aloe  ;  and,  grimmer  than  they, 
a  kind  of  palm  with  branches,  and  at  the  end  of  every  branch 
a  tuft  of  bayonet-shaped  leaves,  pointing  in  every  direction 
from  a  common  centre,  like  the  hair  of  a  human  head  standing 
on  end  with  horror.  It  seemed  the  very  region  where  one 
might  expect  a  robber  to  spring  from  the  bank  of  the  road, 
put  his  pistol  to  your  breast,  and  demand  your  money. 

At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening  we  were  at  the  little  town 
of  San  Agustin  de  Palmar,  and,  finding  that  our  vehicle  was 
to  set  out  again  at  half-past  one,  we  exchanged  places  with 
some  passengers  who  desired  to  go  on  immediately,  but  whose 
conveyance  would  not  be  ready  till  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. The  morning  found  us  journeying  over  a  broad,  arid, 
herbless,  treeless  plain,  encircled  by  mountains  equally  bare 
of  vegetation,  and  of  a  pale-brown  hue.  We  were  still 
shrouded  and  almost  choked  with  the  dust.  Little  whirlwinds 
of  dust  crossed  the  highway  before  us  and  passed  off  toward 
the  mountains.  This  is  the  season  when  the  earth  is  at  rest — 
the  barren  season  of  the  year  ;  in  the  summer,  when  the  rains 
fall,  these  now  bare  fields  are  green  and  fresh  with  the  growing 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  153 

harvests.  The  mountains  gradually  came  nearer  the  highway, 
and  we  passed  from  this  highland  valley  into  another,  which  I 
was  told  is  of  still  higher  elevation,  and  so  we  journeyed  on 
from  one  region  enclosed  by  high  mountains  to  another,  the 
cool,  spring-like  airs  indicating  that  we  were  in  the  temperate 
regions  of  the  republic.  Vast  fields  of  the  maguey,  the  Agave 
Americana,  sometimes  called  the  aloe,  from  which  the  intoxi- 
cating liquor  called  pulque  is  drawn,  now  made  their  appear- 
ance— the  dark-green  plants  set  in  rows  at  such  a  distance 
from  each  other  as  allowed  the  cultivation  of  maize  and  other 
grains  between  them.  Here  and  there  was  a  field  green  with 
irrigation,  and  soon  the  spires  of  Puebla  were  seen  against  the 
evening  sky.  The  roads  were  full  of  people  of  the  aboriginal 
race,  returning  to  their  cabins  from  the  town,  which  we  en- 
tered a  little  after  sunset. 

The  next  morning,  while  waiting  for  the  train,  I  walked, 
with  my  friends,  the  streets  of  Puebla,  which  have  a  cheerful 
look.  Above  all  the  dwellings  rises  the  cathedral  with  its 
domes  and  spires.  We  entered  it,  and  found  the  floor  covered 
with  worshippers,  three  fourths  of  whom  were  women,  mur- 
muring aloud  their  prayers  in  a  supplicating,  half-tremulous 
tone.  The  exterior  of  the  edifice  is  imposing ;  the  ribbed  col- 
umns of  Roman  architecture  are  both  tall  and  massive,  and 
not  without  a  certain  simplicity  in  the  detail,  which,  joined  to 
the  somewhat  dark  color  of  the  marble,  gives  to  the  whole  a 
grave  aspect  well  suited  to  the  house  of  prayer. 

At  half-past  eleven  the  next  morning  we  took  the  railway 
train  to  convey  us  over  the  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  lying 
between  Puebla  and  the  capital.  The  region  was  much  like 
that  over  which  we  had  travelled,  save  that  in  approaching 
Mexico  we  passed  by  abandoned  habitations,  the  tokens  of  a 
dwindled  population,  and  for  a  space  skirted  the  shallow 
waters  of  Lake  Tezcoco,  which  in  places  covered  the  ground 
on  its  edge  with  a  sediment  as  white  as  snow.  The  train 
stopped  at  a  rather  shabby  station  in  the  suburbs  of  the 
capital.  Our  luggage  had  to  undergo  an  inspection  at  the 


I54  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

custom-house,  and  shortly  after  we  were  installed  in  pleasant 
quarters  at  the  Hotel  Iturbide,  named  after  the  young  adven- 
turer who  resided  for  a  short  time  in  the  building,  and  who, 
aspiring  to  be  the  Emperor  of  Mexico,  paid  for  his  ambition 
with  his  life. 

MEXICO,  MARCH  8th :  One  of  the  first  things  which  we  had 
to  do  on  arriving  at  the  city  of  Mexico  was  to  conform  our 
dress  to  the  climate.  We  were  now  in  a  cool  region  nearly 
eight  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  the  tem- 
perature admonished  us  to  resume  our  winter  under-clothing. 
The  sunshine  at  this  season  is  perpetual  and  the  weather 
spring-like.  It  is  only  from  May  to  October  that  the  clouds 
thicken  into  rain.  In  the  early  part  of  winter  spangles  of 
frost  are  sometimes  seen  on  the  ground.  On  an  estate  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  city,  and  on  the  pleasant  slopes  of 
Tacubaya,  amid  stately  palms  and  orange-trees  loaded  with 
their  golden  fruit,  and  roses  in  bloom,  I  saw  a  tree,  more  than 
fifteen  feet  high,  wrapped  in  matting  to  the  very  top.  "  What 
does  that  mean  ?  "  I  asked.  "  It  is  some  tender  tree,"  was  the 
answer,  "  from  the  hot  country  south  of  us,  which  they  have 
covered  in  that  way  to  protect  it  from  the  frost."  The  sum- 
mers in  this  region,  I  am  told,  are  but  little  warmer  than  the 
winters,  the  chief  difference  being  that  the  summer  is  the 
rainy  season,  when  the  afternoons  and  evenings  are  showery, 
and  the  fields  are  in  their  fullest  luxuriance. 

The  city  stands  so  far  above  the  sea-level  that  the  inhabi- 
tants breathe  a  thin  air,  which,  as  the  stranger  immediately 
perceives,  puts  him  out  of  breath  in  ascending  a  staircase  or 
declivity.  Those  who  suffer  from  symptoms  of  heart-disease 
find  them  considerably  aggravated  here,  and  the  remark  is 
often  made  that  deaths  from  that  disease  are  more  frequent 
here  than  in  most  places.  The  air  is  as  dry  as  it  is  thin.  It 
requires  very  brisk  exercise,  even  in  warm  weather,  to  bring 
out  anything  like  sensible  perspiration.  "  I  suppose,"  said  a 
medical  gentleman  with  whom  I  was  talking  on  this  subject, 
"  that  there  are  persons  here,  born  in  Mexico,  who  never  in 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  155 

their  lives  experienced  anything  like  sensible  perspiration." 
"  It  is  an  insidious  climate,"  said  another  resident.  "  You  take 
cold  easily  ;  you  expose  yourself  to  a  draught  which  is  neither 
considerable  nor  unpleasant,  and  the  next  day  you  have  a  se- 
vere cold."  The  disease  of  the  lungs  which  Ihey  call  pulmonia 
in  Madrid,  and  which  is  there  so  violent  and  fatal,  is  almost 
equally  so  here,  and  carries  off  its  victims  after  a  short  illness. 
Yet  Mexico  is  a  healthy  city,  notwithstanding  that  it  is  badly 
drained  ;  indeed,  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  it  is  drained  at  all, 
so  slight  is  all  the  descent  that  can  be  given  to  the  drains. 
There  can  be  no  cellars  to  the  houses,  for,  on  digging  two  or 
three  feet  in  the  ground,  you  come  to  water.  Great  shallow, 
plashy  lakes  cover  vast  tracts  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
city,  and  sometimes,  in  seasons  of  copious  rain,  overflow  their 
banks  and  invade  the  streets,  and  ripple  against  the  thresholds 
of  the  dwellings.  Yet  is  the  air,  so  they  say,  never  charged 
with  moisture,  and  Mexico  will  yet  be  the  frequent  resort  of 
those  who  suffer  from  any  disease  of  the  lungs  or  throat  re- 
quiring a  dry  atmosphere.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the 
climate  is  particularly  favorable  to  longevity,  for  I  saw  few 
old  men,  either  among  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  or  those  of 
Spanish  descent. 

One  who  takes  his  idea  of  this  city  from  photographs  and 
engravings  is  apt  to  suppose  it  a  city  of  small  houses ;  but  this 
is  a  mistake.  It  is  true  that  the  houses  are  not  often  of  more 
than  one  story,  but  they  are  spacious  and  massively  built,  with 
lofty  ceilings.  They  generally  enclose  a  court  of  ample  size, 
round  which,  on  the  second  story,  runs  a  gallery  supported  by 
sturdy  columns  or  square  pillars  of  heavy  masonry.  From 
these  galleries  the  doors  open  into  the  rooms  where  the  family 
live,  including  the  sleeping-rooms,  and  standing  in  the  gal- 
leries or  in  the  roomy  antechambers  are  vases  of  flowering 
plants  of  brilliant  bloom,  which  in  this  spring-like  climate  need 
no  other  attention  than  the  water  which  moistens  the  soil  about 
their  roots.  I  can  scarcely  imagine  a  pleasanter  abode  in  a 
large  town  than  some  of  these  houses  belonging  to  opulent 

VOL.   II. — II 


156  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

families — houses  airy,  cheerful,  and  luxuriously  commodious. 
Yet  beside  this  opulence  you  see  the  most  squalid  poverty ; 
ragged  and  dirty  human  beings,  who  saunter  about  during  the 
day  and  lie  down  at  night  wherever  the  night  surprises  them. 
In  a  climate  so  soft  as  this,  with  a  soil  so  genial  and  produc- 
tive, people  are  tempted  to  be  poor.  It  costs  but  little  labor 
to  obtain  the  means  of  living ;  slight  clothing  is  all  that  is 
needed  ;  slight  shelter  suffices  ;  a  few  beans,  frijoles,  and  two 
or  three  tortillas,  or  flap-jacks,  wind  up  the  living  machine  for 
the  day.  Where  poverty  is  so  easy  a  condition  of  life,  and  its 
few  wants  are  so  cheaply  supplied,  there  must  be  many  poor. 
"  How  many  are  there  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  rich  and  poor 
taken  together  ?  "  I  asked  of  a  resident.  "  Probably  somewhat 
over  two  hundred  thousand,"  was  the  answer,  "  but  no  man 
can  speak  with  any  certainty.  The  moment  that  any  person 
employed  by  the  government  appears  and  begins  to  take  the 
enumeration,  the  suspicion  is  awakened  that  there  is  to  be  a 
conscription,  or  that  a  new  tax  is  to  be  levied.  The  people 
disappear  like  a  brood  of  young  partridges,  and  keep  out  of 
the  way  till  the  supposed  danger  is  over." 

Side  by  side  with  the  utter  poverty  which  I  have  just  de- 
scribed there  is  great  luxury.  The  day  after  my  arrival  I  was 
a  guest  at  a  private  banquet,  and,  without  professing  an  ad- 
miration for  luxurious  dinners,  I  may  say  that  I  never  sat  at 
any  in  which  sumptuousness  exceeded  it.  The  blaze  of  gas- 
lights, the  glitter  of  plate,  the  variety  and  delicacy  of  the 
viands,  the  exquisite  wines,  the  rich  attire  of  the  ladies,  the 
number  and  dexterity  of  the  attendants — were  all  there  in  as 
great  perfection  as  at  the  tables  of  the  most  luxurious  of  our 
own  merchant-princes,  with  a  dessert  of  fruits  of  such  various 
flavors  as  our  climate  does  not  afford.  Nor  should  I  leave  out 
of  the  account  the  profusion  of  flowers,  both  of  tropical  and 
temperate  climates,  which  sweetened  the  atmosphere  —  all 
gathered  from  their  beds  in  the  open  air.  « 

The  day  following  was  Sunday,  and  as  I  went  to  the  cathe- 
dral I  was  struck  with  the  number  of  persons  whom  I  met 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  157 

selling  lottery-tickets.  Gambling  is  one  of  the  besetting 
vices  of  the  Mexicans,  and  the  numerous  lotteries  give  them 
the  opportunity  to  gamble  as  they  are  going  to  church.  I 
found  the  floor  of  the  cathedral  occupied  by  a  crowd  on  their 
knees,  mostly  women,  while  priests  in  their  rich  vestments 
were  officiating  at  the  principal  altar.  The  building  without 
is  not  imposing ;  its  front  is  covered  with  a  jumble  of  pilasters 
and  capitals  and  scrolls,  and  other  architectural  ornaments ; 
but  within  it  is  grave  and  grand,  though  in  some  parts  want- 
ing in  simplicity. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  vestments  of  the  priests.  By  the 
"  laws  of  reform,"  as  they  are  called,  no  ecclesiastical  costume 
can  be  worn  in  the  streets.  You  might  traverse  Mexico  from 
Sonora  to  Yucatan  and  never  meet  with  any  person  whom 
you  would  recognize  as  a  priest,  save  when  you  entered  the 
churches.  They  are  obliged  to  dress  as  others  do  ;  they  can 
get  up  no  religious  processions :  all  such  are  forbidden ;  the 
convents  are  suppressed  ;  there  is  neither  monk  nor  nun  in  all 
Mexico ;  the  convent  buildings  and  grounds  have  been  taken 
by  the  government ;  many  of  the  churches  have  shared  the 
same  fate,  and  the  schools,  of  which  at  one  time  the  priests 
had  the  sole  direction,  are  all  secularized  and  given  to  the  con- 
trol of  laymen.  So  dissatisfied  are  the  Catholic  clergy  with 
these  restrictions  that,  as  I  am  told,  they  are  the  most  zealous 
friends  of  annexation  to  the  United  States  that  are  found  in 
all  Mexico,  in  the  hope  of  recovering  by  it  some  of  their  lost 
privileges. 

From  the  cathedral  I  followed  the  street  till  I  came  to  a 
chapel  belonging  to  what  was  called  the  Church  of  Jesus. 
This  church  and  another,  both  of  them  large,  have  been  sold 
by  the  government,  at  a  low  price,  to  the  Protestant  worship- 
pers. In  the  chapel  I  found  about  four  hundred  persons, 
whieh  were  as  many  as  could  be  seated,  in  devout  attitudes, 
while  in  the  pulpit  a  minister  in  a  white  surplice  was  engaged 
in  prayer.  The  form  of  the  service  was  partly  liturgical,  and 
there  were  occasional  responses.  After  the  prayer  a  hymn 


158  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

was  given  out,  and  sung  by  the  congregation  with  great  ap- 
parent fervor.  I  looked  round  upon  the  assembly,  which  was 
composed  of  men  in  the  proportion  of  three  to  one  of  the 
other  sex,  and  perceived  that  they  were  mostly  of  the  aborigi- 
nal race.  Most  of  them,  however,  were  neatly  dressed,  and 
all  were  attentive.  The  minister  then  preached  a  sermon  ;  he 
spoke  with  animation,  and  was  apparently  heard  with  very 
great  interest.  I  inquired  afterward  the  meaning  of  what  I 
had  seen.  "  The  person  whom  you  saw  in  the  pulpit,"  was 
the  answer,  "is  Father  Agnas,  a  Catholic  .priest  of  no  little 
eloquence,  who  has  been  converted  to  the  Protestant  faith  ; 
but  the  principal  head  of  the  Protestant  Church  here,  and  the 
composer  of  its  liturgy,  is  Father  Reilly,  who  is  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  although  reared  in  Chili.  He  has  engaged 
with  great  zeal  in  the  cause  of  Protestantism,  and  is  aided  by 
several  ministers  who  once  belonged  to  the  Church  of  Rome, 
and  are  now  as  zealous  as  he  in  making  converts  from  it.  The 
government  favors  them,  and  would  doubtless  be  glad  of  their 
success,  for  the  government  and  the  Catholic  priesthood  bear 
no  good-will  to  each  other.  There  are  now  more  than  a  score 
of  these  Protestant  congregations  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  and 
more  than  thirty  in  the  neighboring  country.  The  priesthood 
are  naturally  vexed  at  seeing  the  Protestants  in  churches 
which  once  were  theirs,  but  the  effect  upon  them  is  salutary, 
for  it  has  made  them  more  attentive  to  their  own  personal 
morals." 

Those  who  have  read  the  accounts  of  Mexico  given  by 
travellers  will  remember  that  the  clergy  of  this  country  are 
generally  spoken  of  as  exceedingly  loose  in  their  morals.  The 
truth  of  this  was  afterward  confirmed  to  me  by  a  gentleman 
who  had  resided  for  some  years  in  Mexico.  "  I  am  a  Catho- 
lic," said  he,  "  brought  up  as  a  Catholic  in  the  United  States. 
When  I  came  here  I  expected  to  find  the  clergy  of  my  Church 
such  as  they  are  in  the  country  I  left — men  of  pure  lives,  and 
watchful  guardians  of  the  morals  of  their  flocks.  I  was  disap- 
pointed ;  I  found  them  immoral  in  their  own  lives,  and  indiffer- 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO. 


159 


ent  to  the  morals  of  those  who  were  under  their  spiritual  care, 
I  must  say  that  they  have  not  done  their  duty  ;  and  if  the 
Mexican  people  are  not  what  they  ought  to  be,  the  clergy  are 
in  a  good  degree  responsible."  Afterward  I  saw  Father 
Reilly,  as  he  is  often  called  here.  He  assured  me  that  all 
which  I  had  heard  of  his  success  and  the  displeasure  of  the 
clergy  was  true,  and  expressed  strong  hopes  of  further  suc- 
cess. I  mentioned  to  him  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
worshippers  whom  I  saw  in  the  cathedral  were  women,  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  church  I  found  that  the  men 
greatly  outnumbered  the  women.  He  replied  that  in  some  of 
the  Protestant  congregations  the  women  were  most  numerous. 
There  is  no  question  that  the  Catholic  clergy  in  Mexico  have" 
been  fearfully  corrupted  by  what  may  be  called  the  monopoly 
of  religious  worship  which  they  possessed,  by  the  immense 
riches  of  their  Church,  and  the  power  of  persecution  which 
was  placed  in  their  hands.  They  will  become  better  men  by 
the  effect  of  adversity  and  the  formidable  rivalry  to  which 
they  are  now  subjected. 

MEXICO,  MARCH  loth :  One  of  the  first  visits  I  made  to 
the  country  surrounding  the  city  of  Mexico  was  to  Chapulte- 
pec,  a  rocky  mount  rising  from  the  midst  of  a  plain  west  of 
the  town.  A  grove  of  cypresses  and  other  trees  shades  its 
eastern  slope,  and  hither  the  kings  of  Mexico,  before  the  con- 
quest, are  said  to  have  resorted  for  recreation.  One  of  these 
cypresses  yet  bears  the  name  of  Montezuma's  Tree,  and  even 
before  his  time  must  have  seen  several  generations  of  the 
Aztec  monarchs.  We  measured  it,  and  found  it  thirty-seven 
feet  and  four  inches  in  circumference — the  largest  tree  that  I 
ever  saw  in  any  part  of  the  world.  It  is  still  in  full  vigor,  and 
will  outlast  many  generations  of  men  yet  to  come.  I  looked 
into  its  broad  extent  of  branches,  hung  with  gray,  thread-like 
mosses  clinging  to  them  like  mist,  and  thought  of  the  dim 
antiquity  which  dwelt  there,  and  of  the  unwritten  histories, 
both  sorrowful  and  pleasant,  bound  up  in  the  long  life  of  that 
silent  tree. 


160  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

It  was  a  holiday,  and  there  were  several  parties  of  pleasure 
in  these  ancient  shades.  In  one  part  was  a  family  group  at 
a  picnic ;  in  another  a  guitar  was  tinkling,  and  two  or  three 
couples  dancing ;  in  another  were  a  young  man  and  woman 
withdrawn  from  the  rest — most  likely  lovers — engaged  in  such 
talk  as  lovers  use.  I  climbed  with  my  companions  to  the  top 
of  the  hill,  where  is  a  palace  which  had  been  fitted  up  by 
Maximilian  for  his  own  residence,  but  in  which  the  poor 
fellow,  during  his  short  and  most  unhappy  reign,  could  be 
scarcely  said  to  have  ever  resided.  It  stands  in  the  midst  of 
a  garden,  where  the  air  is  sweetened  all  the  year  with  shrubs 
in  bloom.  Near  it,  on  the  esplanade,  the  Mexican  gentleman 
who  accompanied  us  pointed  out  what  at  first  seemed  to  us  a 
deep  well — a  circular  opening  in  the  ground — walled  up  with 
stones  apparently  hewn.  "  This,"  he  said,  "  belongs  to  the 
time  of  the  Aztecs.  It  communicates  with  a  cavern  below, 
having  its  issue  on  the  west  side  of  the  hill,  so  that  it  forms  an 
underground  passage." 

The  view  from  the  top  of  Chapultepec  is  very  fine.  The 
Mexicans  are  fond  of  repeating  a  saying  ascribed  to  Hum- 
boldt— that  it  is  the  finest  view  in  the  world  ;  to  which  I  should 
not  agree,  for  there  are  finer  in  the  neighborhood  of  Orizaba. 
But  it  was  very  striking  as  I  saw  it — the  great  valley  of  Mexi- 
co stretching  away  on  every  side,  the  city  with  its  spires,  the 
green  fields  artificially  watered,  the  brown  pasture-lands,  the 
great  glimmering  lakes,  the  rows  and  groups  of  trees  in  full 
leaf  that  mark  the  place  of  the  floating  gardens,  and  finally 
the  circle  of  mountains  enclosing  all.  Beyond  these,  in  clear 
weather,  the  snowy  peaks  of  the  two  great  and  now  silent  vol- 
canoes of  Popocatepetl  and  Iztaccihuatl  are  seen  rising  to  an 
immense  height.  Near  at  hand,  and  in  full  sight,  is  the  build- 
ing called  the  Molino  del  Rey,  or  King's  Mill,  around  which 
was  fought  the  bloody  battle  of  that  name,  just  before  the 
entrance  of  the  United  States  troops  into  the  city  in  the  late 
war  with  Mexico.  With  the  narrative  of  that  war  before  him, 
one  may  stand  on  Chapultepec  and  trace  the  progress  of  the 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  l6l 

American  armies  step  by  step  as  they  drew  near  to  the  capi- 
tal which  was  to  fall  into  their  hands. 

On  the  slope  of  Chapultepec  we  passed  the  large  basin  of  a 
copious  spring,  forty  feet  in  depth,  and  so  clear  that  the  bot- 
tom seems  almost  close  to  the  eye.  A  rapid  stream  rushes 
from  it  and  is  received  in  a  stately  aqueduct,  which  carries  it 
off  to  the  city  of  Mexico  on  its  tall  arches,  resembling  those 
which  cross  the  Roman  Campagna.  Looking  to  the  south, 
you  see  another  and  longer  aqueduct,  which  strides  across 
the  plain,  bringing  water  from  a  more  distant  point.  Lower 
down  gushes  from  the  ground  another  spring,  no  less  copious, 
which  supplies  commodious  baths,  public  and  private,  and 
then  flows  on  to  irrigate  the  fields,  marking  its  course  by 
tracts  of  verdure.  Leaving  these  behind  us,  we  followed  the 
road  a  little  distance  to  the  village  of  Tacubaya,  situated  on 
ground  somewhat  elevated  above  the  plain,  and  noted  for  its 
beautiful  country  seats,  the  property  of  opulent  families  in  the 
city.  We  entered  and  wandered  over  one  of  these — the  Escan- 
don  estate,  as  it  is  called,  from  the  name  of  the  family  owning 
it.  It  was  a  perfect  labyrinth  of  walks  among  fruit-trees  and 
flowering  shrubs.  The  walks,  twining  through  the  grove,  are 
somewhat  neglected,  to  be  sure.  Here  and  there  were  tower- 
ing over  the  palms  the  fruit-trees.  A  spacious  mansion  stood 
in  the  midst  of  an  ample  flower-garden.  "  Is  not  the  family 
there?"  I  asked.  "  No,"  was  the  answer,  "the  family  is  safer 
in  town.  The  members  sometimes  come  out  to  visit  this  place 
in  the  daytime  and  return  by  daylight,  but  they  never  venture 
to  remain  here  over  night.  They  might  be  robbed,  or  perhaps 
kidnapped,  and  made  to  pay  a  heavy  ransom."  I  looked  round 
on  the  orange-trees  dropping  their  fruit,  and  on  the  neglected 
walks,  where  the  weeds  were  beginning  to  make  their  appear- 
ance, and,  beautiful  as  the  place  was,  I  did  not  much  wonder 
that  it  was  not  more  carefully  tended  by  those  who  were  able 
to  enjoy  its  beauty  only  by  snatches,  or  in  constant  fear  of  a 
visit  from  banditti.  That  Tacubaya  was  not  a  safe  place  for 
those  who  had  anything  to  lose  I  had  a  proof  before  I  got 


1 62  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

home,  for,  arriving  at  the  railway-station  just  before  sunset,  I 
entered  the  cars  amid  a  crowd  of  people  returning  to  town, 
and  soon  after,  having  occasion  to  consult  my  watch,  I  found 
that  it  was  missing. 

The  most  unsafe  place,  however,  at  present,  seems  to  be  the 
railway  between  this  city  and  Puebla.  The  newspapers  here 
give  accounts  of  attacks  made  by  robbers  on  the  trains  con- 
veying pulque,  which  is  the  beverage  drawn  from  the  plant 
called  here  the  maguey.  These  attacks,  however,  have  been 
generally  repulsed.  Not  so  fortunate  has  been  the  superin- 
tendent and  paymaster  of  the  railway  which  is  yet  construct- 
ing between  Puebla  and  Orizaba,  Mr.  Quin,  whom  I  saw  the 
day  after  my  arrival,  just  returned  from  an  adventure  with  the 
robbers.  They  seized  him  when  he  happened  to  be  without 
money,  took  away  his  watch,  and,  after  a  detention  of  two 
hours,  bargained  with  him  for  his  release  on  the  payment  of 
fifty  dollars,  which  he  brought  them,  and  they  returned  him 
his  watch.  But  the  watch  he  was  not  to  keep,  for  two  days 
afterward  I  heard  that  they  found  him  with  sixteen  hundred 
dollars  on  his  person,  and  took  that  and  the  watch  also.  Soon 
afterward  news  came  that  Mr.  Quin  was  kidnapped  a  third 
time.  He  had  no  money  with  him,  and,  after  detaining  him  a 
day  or  two,  the  robbers  allowed  him  to  depart,  with  the  mes- 
sage to  his  employers  that  if  forty  thousand  dollars  were  not 
immediately  sent  them  they  would  tear  up  the  iron  rails. 
The  money,  however,  has  not  been  paid,  and  the  railway  is 
yet  untouched.  The  leader  of  these  bandits  is  one  Negrete, 
who  calls  himself  a  general  and  claims  to  be  a  revolutionist, 
instead  of  a  robber. 

MEXICO,  MARCH  I  ith  :  One  of  the  most  interesting  things 
to  be  seen  in  Mexico  is  the  school  of  Tecpan  de  Santiago,  a 
charitable  institution,  founded  and  supported  by  a  Mexican 
lady,  the  Senora  Baz,  wife  of  an  opulent  gentleman  who  has 
formerly  filled  the  post  of  Governor  of  the  province  of  Mexico. 
We  called  first  at  the  house  of  Governor  Baz,  as  he  is  called, 
one  of  the  finest  mansions  in  Mexico,  fitted  up  with  great  taste 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  163 

and  attention  to  comfort.  His  lady,  a  native  Mexican  of  some- 
what slight  but  elegant  figure  and  quiet  manners,  came  out  and 
accompanied  us  in  our  visit  to  the  school.  Just  on  the  skirts 
of  the  city,  or  perhaps  a  little  outside  of  them,  stands  a  spa- 
cious building,  once  the  convent  of  Tecpan  de  Santiago,  and 
this  has  been  taken  by  Senora  Baz  for  the  charitable  purpose 
to  which  she  devotes  a  large  income  and  gives  her  daily  care. 
In  this  school  five  hundred  boys — picked  up  in  the  city,  parent- 
less,  or  neglected  by  their  parents,  utterly  friendless,  and,  if 
not  taken  from  the  streets,  certain  to  belong  to  that  miserable 
class  called  the  leperos,  and  to  grow  up  in  ignorance  and  habits 
of  indolence  and  vice — are  clothed,  fed,  educated,  taught  a 
variety  of  trades  and  employments,  and  fitted  to  become  useful 
members  of  society.  We  passed  from  room  to  room,  in  some 
of  which  the  lads  were  studying  their  lessons,  and  in  others 
attending  to  the  occupations  in  which  they  were  to  be  trained. 
Here  were  the  future  shoemakers  of  Mexico,  busy  over  their 
lasts  and  lapstones ;  there  the  tailors  learning  to  sew  and  cut 
out  and  fit  garments,  and  in  another  place  the  printers  busy  at 
their  types.  "  The  proceedings  and  ordinances  of  the  Com- 
mon Council  are  printed  here,"  said  Senor  Baz,  and  we  were 
shown  several  samples  neatly  executed.  In  one  room  were 
the  young  cabinet-makers,  smoothing  and  polishing  slabs  of 
rosewood ;  in  another,  carpenters  learning  to  handle  the  saw 
and  plane ;  in  a  third,  several  turning-lathes  were  humming. 
The  boys  were  all  neatly  and  comfortably  clad  in  the  gar- 
ments made  by  their  own  tailors.  We  passed  through  the 
prodigiously  long  halls  which  serve  as  dormitories,  with  their 
neat  beds,  numerous  enough  to  lodge  a  regiment  of  soldiers, 
and  came  last  to  the  kitchen,  where  ample  preparations  were 
making  for  their  meals. 

In  this  school  the  course  of  education  includes  grammar, 
drawing,  and  music.  The  benevolent  founder  of  the  school 
visits  it  every  day,  observes  the  progress  of  the  pupils,  sees 
that  their  comfort  is  not  neglected,  and  that  her  plan  is  faith- 
fully carried  out.  Such  an  inroad  as  her  institution  is  making 


1 64  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

into  the  worthless  class  of  leperos  must  at  length  reduce  their 
number  and  increase  the  proportion  of  those  who  live  in  com- 
fortable houses  and  follow  habits  of  regular  industry.  I  can 
hardly  imagine  a  fairer  omen  of  the  future  peace  and  pros- 
perity of  Mexico  than  this  noble  example  of  one  of  her  daugh- 
ters, who  applies  her  large  fortune,  and  gives  the  leisure 
which  her  large  fortune  allows  her,  to  the  work  of  rescuing 
such  numbers  of  her  fellow-creatures  from  the  degradation  and 
misery  to  which  they  seemed  to  be  doomed  by  the  circum- 
stances of  their  birth. 

There  is  yet  another  department  of  this  school  which  an- 
swers to  our  House  of  Refuge,  just  as  the  department  which  I 
have  already  described  answers  to  our  Children's  Aid  Society. 
There  are  seventy-five  boys  sent  to  it  from  the  criminal  tribu- 
nals for  reformation.  These  young  delinquents  are  all  kept 
by  themselves,  and  never  see  the  other  inmates.  I  fancied  that 
I  saw  in  the  faces  of  some  of  them  a  peculiar  expression — a 
premature  sharpness  and  slyness.  One  of  them,  and  one  of 
the  youngest,  was  asked  for  what  cause  he  had  been  sent 
there.  His  answer  was  a  little  too  discreet.  He  was  charged, 
he  said,  with  taking  something  that  belonged  to  another. 

The  same  day  we  visited  the  market  which  lies  beside  the 
canal  connecting  the  lake  of  Tezcoco  with  that  of  Chalco. 
There  the  flat-bottomed  boats  come  in  loaded  with  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  chinampas,  or  floating  gardens,  as  they  are  some- 
times called,  though  they  are  only  narrow  parallelograms  of 
fertile  soil  surrounded  by  canals,  from  which  they  are  watered 
and  kept  constantly  green.  Over  a  large  space  of  this  market 
we  saw  women  squatted  on  the  ground  in  the  dust  beside 
their  vegetables,  their  fruits,  and  their  wares,  for  at  this  season 
the  sunshine  is  constant,  and  the  showers  are  not  to  fall  till 
May.  If  any  shelter  from  the  sun  is  wanted,  a  rude  one  is 
formed  by  a  piece  of  matting  supported  on  poles.  No  season 
in  Mexico  seems  to  be  without  its  fruits ;  the  banana  may  be 
had  in  perfection  all  the  year  round  ;  the  orange  is  now  as  fine 
as  it  can  be ;  the  granadilla,  or  fruit  of  the  edible  passion-flow- 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  165 

er,  is  at  this  time  common  in  the  markets,  as  well  as  the  sapote 
prieto,  or  dark-colored  sapote,  a  green  fruit,  filled  with  a  rich, 
jetty  pulp,  like  a  sort  of  marmalade.  Meantime,  the  aguacate, 
or  what  in  the  English  West  Indies  is  called  the  alligator-pear, 
is  reserved  for  a  later  season,  and  the  Manila  mango,  the  finest 
variety  of  mango,  is  just  putting  forth  its  clusters  of  red  blos- 
soms ;  its  fruits  are  not  to  be  ripe  before  next  summer.  Other 
fruits  follow  in  that  order  till  the  year  completes  its  circle. 

On  our  return  to  our  hotel  we  saw  a  crowd  of  people 
about  an  open  door,  and,  looking  in,  we  saw  the  drawing  of  a 
lottery,  in  which  the  bystanders  seemed  to  be  much  interested. 
A  hollow  cylinder,  full  of  bits  of  paper  indicating  the  blanks 
and  prizes,  was  made  to  revolve  a  few  times  ;  a  little  boy  then 
thrust  in  an  awl  through  an  opening  among  these  bits  of 
paper,  and  on  its  point  drew  out  either  a  blank  or  a  prize,  and 
this  determined  the  fate  of  the  ticket  of  which  the  number 
was  read  just  before  the  cylinder  was  made  to  revolve.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  earnings  of  the  humbler  class  in  Mexico 
are  thrown  away  in  the  purchase  of  lottery-tickets,  and  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that,  where  the  passion  for  this  sort  of 
gambling  is  so  very  common,  there  should  be  such  extreme 
poverty. 

I  have  since  visited  an  institution  in  which,  until  the  era  of 
Mexican  independence,  orphan  children  of  the  emigrants  from 
Biscay  to  Mexico  were  educated.  It  was  a  magnificent  en- 
dowment, founded  by  the  opulent  Biscayans  while  the  coun- 
try was  under  the  rule  of  Spain.  A  million  of  dollars  twas 
expended  in  erecting  a  building  of  vast  dimensions — a  perfect 
palace,  enclosing  several  quadrangles — and  half  a  million  dol- 
lars set  aside  for  the  support  of  the  inmates.  It  was  originally 
called  the  Colegio  de  las  Biscayinas ;  but  the  Basques  in  Mexi- 
co might,  I  suppose,  now  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one's 
hand,  and  the  Mexican  government  has  taken  possession  of  the 
institution  and  named  it  the  National  School  for  Girls.  Here 
seventy-eight  orphan  girls  of  all  the  different  races  in  Mexico 
are  sheltered,  reared,  educated,  and  provided  with  a  home  till 


1 66  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

they  marry.  Drawing  and  music  are  among  the  accomplish- 
ments which  they  are  taught — embroidery,  of  course.  The 
inmates  were  of  all  ages ;  some  had  already  reached  middle 
life,  and  as  spinsters  were  sure  of  a  shelter  till  they  died  of 
old  age.  We  were  shown  over  the  whole,  and  could  not  but 
admire  the  clean  and  comfortable  appearance  of  everything 
in  their  airy  apartments.  The  long  sleeping-rooms,  in  which 
were  rows  of  neat  little  beds,  stretched  away  like  the  galleries 
of  the  Louvre  in  Paris.  The  matron  who  showed  us  these 
rooms,  and  who  accompanied  us  to  the  great  kitchen,  where 
the  dinner  of  the  inmates  was  simmering,  smoked,  as  she  went, 
a  cigarilloy  a  pinch  or  two  of  fine  tobacco  rolled  up  in  paper  so 
as  to  form  a  little  cylinder.  It  is  customary  among  the  elderly 
Mexican  women  and  those  of  middle  age  to  smoke  tobacco 
in  this  form,  but  when  I  spoke  of  this  to  a  Mexican  lady  she 
answered :  "  The  practice  is  going  out  of  vogue ;  the  young 
women  now  do  not  smoke." 

But  I  have  not  yet  done  with  the  school.  All  these  ample 
accommodations  are  not  alone  for  the  orphans  who  are  gratui- 
tously provided  for.  A  hundred  and  forty  girls  of  Mexican 
families  are  received  here  as  boarders  and  pupils  on  payment 
of  ten  dollars  monthly.  Besides  these,  there  is  kept  in  the 
building  a  day-school  for  little  girls  of  the  poorer  class,  who 
amount  to  an  indefinite  number,  and  for  whom  nothing  is 
paid. 

From  the  National  School  for  Girls  I  went  to  the  Found- 
ling Hospital,  which  is  here  called  the  Cuna,  or  Cradle.  Here 
I  found  myself  in  a  swarm  of  three  hundred  of  these  parent- 
less  creatures,  from  grown-up  boys  and  girls  down  to  the  babe 
of  yesterday.  Some  of  them  were  plump-looking  infants, 
asleep  in  their  little  beds,  and  there  were  one  or  two  lying 
uneasily  and  panting  with  fever.  I  was  surprised  at  the  small 
number  of  boys  in  the  hospital.  "  How  is  this  ?  "  I  asked  ; 
"  what  is  the  proportion  of  boys  to  girls  in  this  institution  ?  " 
"  Three  fourths  are  girls,"  was  the  answer.  "  But  why  should 
they  send  girls  to  this  place  rather  than  boys?"  "Simply 


A    VISIT   TO  MEXICO.  167 

because  there  are  more  of  them.  The  births  settle  that  mat- 
ter. Here  in  Mexico  are  born  three  girls  to  one  boy."  I 
expressed  my  astonishment  at  this,  but  I  was  assured  that  the 
statistics  of  the  country  showed  the  fact  to  be  as  here  stated ; 
and,  indeed,  the  register  of  the  Foundling  Hospital  is  pretty 
good  evidence  of  the  vast  preponderance  of  female  over  male 
births  in  Mexico.  A  smiling  ecclesiastic,  with  an  asthmatic 
laugh,  conducted  us  over  the  building,  or  rather  the  two  large 
private  houses  so  connected  as  to  form  one,  and  caused  one  of 
the  inmates,  already  a  woman  grown,  to  play  for  us  on  the 
piano,  which  she  did  very  creditably.  Fourteen  of  the  girls 
then  sang  in  chorus  two  or  three  songs  with  a  precision  which 
showed  that  they  had  been  carefully  trained. 

We  closed  the  day,  as  it  is  often  closed  here,  with  a  drive 
on  the  Paseo  west  of  the  city.  On  our  way  we  passed  through 
the  Alameda,  a  fine  grove  of  tall  trees  intersected  with  walks 
and  carriage-roads.  Hither  on  holidays  come  crowds  of  the 
Mexican  people  in  their  best  dresses.  Here  some  sit  on 
benches  and  listen  to  music,  while  others,  in  couples,  move  to 
thejarabe,  a  peculiar  and  not  ungraceful  dance  of  this  country 
and  of  Cuba.  Hither  resort  on  these  occasions  the  sellers  of 
sweetmeats  and  fruits,  and  find  a  ready  market  for  their  wares. 
The  sober  shadow  cast  by  those  great  old  trees  is  then 
lighted  up  through  all  its  extent  by  the  brilliant  hues,  not 
only  of  the  women's  dresses,but  of  the  sarapes,  or  light  shawls, 
with  bright-colored  stripes,  worn  by  the  broad-brimmed  Mexi- 
cans. The  Spanish  minister,  a  most  amiable  man  and  a  favor- 
ite among  the  Mexicans,  sent  from  Spain,  doubtless,  to  win 
their  hearts  and  keep  them  in  good  humor,  had  given  me  a 
seat  in  his  carriage,  and  we  drove  to  the  broad  space  beyond 
the  city  bounds,  about  an  eighth  of  a  mile  in  length,  where  the 
carriages  were  passing  backward  and  forward  and  by  each 
other,  from  one  end  of  the  Paseo  to  the  other,  a  favorite  amuse- 
ment of  the  Mexicans,  and  adopted  from  the  Spaniards.  The 
earth  in  this  dry  season  requires  profuse  watering,  and  on  that 
day  the  place  had  been  but  slightly  sprinkled,  so  that  we  were 


1 68  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

involved  in  clouds  of  dust.  After  several  rounds  we  drew  up 
on  one  side  of  the  Paseo,  where  a  row  of  carriages  had  already 
ranged  themselves,  and  observed  the  handsome  equipages  and 
gayly  dressed  women  as  they  passed.  Two  or  three  turns 
more  on  the  Paseo  completed  the  entertainment,  which  seemed 
to  me  excessively  dull,  considering  the  dust,  and  with  the  set- 
ting sun  I  returned  to  the  Hotel  Iturbide. 

MEXICO,  MARCH  nth:  In  company  with  my  travelling 
companions,  I  have  been  presented  to  Senor  Juarez,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Mexican  republic.  We  went  to  the  palace,  a  spa- 
cious building  of  massive  construction,  where  in  the  time  of 
the  Spanish  dominion  the  viceroys  dwelt  in  semi-regal  state. 
Mr.  Romero,  the  Minister  of  Finance,  had  promised  to  accom- 
pany us,  and  we  called  on  him  at  his  cabinet  in  a  corner  of  the 
building,  where  we  found  him,  as  usual,  closely  engaged  in  the 
business  of  his  department.  It  is  no  holiday  task  to  have 
charge  of  the  exchequer  of  Mexico,  the  expenditures  of  which 
are  greater  than  the  income,  and  we  wondered  not  that  our 
friend  should  have  the  look  of  one  who  is  greatly  overworked 
and  beset  by  many  perplexities.  We  followed  him  through 
spacious  antechambers  and  long  halls  to  the  cabinet  of  the 
President.  The  palace,  in  its  present  state,  is  large,  including 
several  quadrangles  ;  but  it  was  considerably  larger  before  the 
time  of  Maximilian,  who  pulled  down  a  considerable  part  of  it, 
with  a  view  of  rebuilding  it  in  a  style  more  conformable  to  his 
taste.  He  had  just  time  to  demolish,  but  defeat  and  death 
overtook  him  before  he  had  time  to  rebuild. 

We  reached  the  cabinet  of  the  President,  and  found  him 
expecting  us.  I  was  struck  with  his  appearance.  There  stood 
before  me  a  man  of  low  stature  and  dark  complexion,  evi- 
dently of  the  Aztec  race,  square-built  and  sturdy  in  figure, 
with  a  mild  expression  of  countenance,  yet  with  something  in 
his  aspect  which  indicated  inflexible  resolution.  He  is  sixty- 
six  years  of  age,  but  time  seems  to  have  dealt  gently  with 
him  ;  his  hair  is  not  sprinkled  with  gray,  nor  his  face  marked 
with  wrinkles.  The  image  of  him  which  remains  in  my  mem- 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  169 

ory  is  that  of  a  man  not  much  older  than  fifty  years.  I  had 
already  seen  three  of  his  daughters  at  an  evening  party,  chil- 
dren of  a  lady  of  Italian  extraction.  They  seemed  to  me  to 
be  favorable  samples  of  the  blending  of  the  European  with 
the  Aztec  race. 

He  received  us  courteously.  We  spoke  of  the  signal  de- 
feat of  the  insurgents  a  few  days  before  by  the  government 
forces  under  General  Rocha,  the  news  of  which  had  been  re- 
ceived with  great  rejoicings  at  the  capital.  "  It  is,"  he  said, 
"  the  end  of  the  revolt.  We  shall  hear  but  little  more  of  it. 
After  the  first  of  May,  when  the  rainy  season  begins,  and  the 
insurgents  find  themselves  without  shelter,  they  will  come  out 
of  their  hiding-places  in  the  woods  and  submit."  We  talked 
of  the  state  of  the  country.  "  We  have,"  he  said,  "  great  ad- 
vantages of  soil  and  climate,  but  we  want  capital  for  enter- 
prises important  to  the  country,  and  we  want  the  strong  arms 
of  skilled  laborers  to  execute  them."  He  might  have  added 
that,  more  than  all,  the  country  wants  internal  quiet.  The  re- 
volt by  which  the  republic  is  now  disturbed  will  certainly  be 
suppressed  ;  the  rebels  will  submit ;  the  roads  will  be  again 
safe  from  robberies  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  revolution  ; 
but  those  who  have  lived  for  some  years  in  the  country  do  not 
feel  certain  that  the  quiet  will  last.  "  We  shall  have  a  peace- 
ful condition  of  things,"  said  one  of  them  to  me,  "  for  about 
two  years ;  then  these  fellows  who  are  now  running  away 
from  Rocha  will  become  uneasy  again  ;  we  shall  have  another 
pronunciamiento  and  another  revolt,  and  fresh  robberies  on,  the 
highways."  I  hope  this  anticipation  will  not  become  a  reality. 
It  is  founded  on  the  restlessness  of  the  mixed  race  in  Mexico, 
who  are  about  one-fifth  part  of  the  inhabitants.  The  Aztec 
race,  who  form  the  greater  part  of  the  population,  I  was  told, 
are  generally  mild,  docile,  and  submissive  to  the  government. 
Hard-working  they  are  not,  but  nearly  all  the  labor  of  the 
fields  in  Mexico  is  performed  by  their  hands.  It  is  they  who 
are  the  handicraftsmen  for  the  most  part,  and  the  regular  in- 
dustry of  the  country,  such  as  it  is,  is  theirs.  In  the  mixed 


I ;o  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

race,  I  was  told,  are  found  the  men  who  will  not  work,  and 
are  ready  to  engage  in  a  revolt  against  the  government,  which 
gives  them  an  opportunity  of  living  by  extorting  contribu- 
tions from  the  peaceable  part  of  the  population.  These  fel- 
lows will  fight  on  any  side  indiscriminately,  and,  when  beaten, 
enlist  in  the  victorious  army. 

President  Juarez  dismissed  me  with  words  which  I  may 
cite  as  a  characteristic  example  of  Spanish  courtesy.  Taking 
both  my  hands  in  his,  he  said  :  "  Remember,  Senor,  that  in  me 
you  have  a  servant  and  a  friend.  If  at  any  time  you  have  oc- 
casion for  my  aid,  apply  to  me  confidently,  and  the  service  you 
desire  shall  be  performed." 

To  understand  the  nature  of  the  revolt  which  now  seems 
to  have  received  its  death-blow,  it  should  be  remembered  that 
at  the  last  election  of  President  in  Mexico  there  were  three 
candidates — Juarez,  who  now  fills  that  post ;  Lerdo,  now  the 
principal  judge  of  the  highest  tribunal  in  Mexico,  and  Porfirio 
Diaz,  who  had  distinguished  himself  as  an  able  general  in  the 
war  which  ended  in  the  overthrow  of  Maximilian.  Juarez 
obtained  the  office  ;  his  rivals  complained  of  unfairness  in  the 
election;  Lerdo  and  his  friends  submitted,  but  Porfirio  Diaz 
took  up  arms,  issued  a  pronunciamiento,  and  attempted  to  seize 
upon  the  government  by  force.  He  drew  to  his  standard  the 
desperate  men  who  are  too  numerous  in  Mexico,  and  who  saw 
in  the  revolt  an  opportunity  of  living  by  contributions  wrung 
from  the  people.  They  have  met  the  fate  which  they  de- 
served. A  few  of  their  chiefs  yet  seem  to  hold  out,  but  their 
'principal  leader,  whose  military  fame  and  prowess  were  their 
boast  and  their  great  reliance,  has  disappeared  ;  and  whether 
he  be  dead  or  concealed  in  some  hiding-place  in  Mexico,  or 
has  run  away,  nobody  knows. 

Of  course,  Mexico  cannot  prosper  until  these  disturbances 
cease,  without  a  probability  of  their  being  renewed.  Capital 
will  not  flow  into  Mexico  without  some  assurance  that  it  shall 
be  secure,  and  that  its  earnings  shall  not  be  wrested  from  the 
hands  of  the  owner.  Skilled  laborers  will  not  seek  employment 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  171 

in  Mexico  unless  they  can  be  sure  of  keeping  the  accumulations 
of  their  wages.  Ten  years  of  perfect  quiet  would  make  an 
immense  difference  in  the  condition  of  the  country.  Capital 
would  enter  from  other  regions,  and  bring  with  it  the  skilled 
and  energetic  labor  that  is  wanted.  Railways  would  be  con- 
structed and  safely  guarded ;  highways  would  be  opened  ;  the 
waters  that  fall  on  the  mountains  would  be  gathered  in  great 
reservoirs  on  the  declivities,  and  in  winter  led  in  rivulets  over 
the  fertile  valleys  which  for  half  the  year  are  now  beds  of  dust, 
and  would  keep  them,  through  all  the  dry  season,  green  and 
overspread  with  perpetual  harvests.  The  only  difficulty  which 
I  see  in  the  way  of  these  enterprises  is  a  certain  jealousy  of 
foreigners,  which  influences,  to  some  extent,  not  the  govern- 
ment, but  the  mass  of  the  people.  At  one  time  since  the 
independence  of  Mexico  was  declared,  the  expulsion  of  all  for- 
eigners from  the  republic  was  decreed,  and,  in  obedience  to 
the  fierce  demand  of  the  populace,  they  were  all  driven  out. 
That  feeling  has  since  been  greatly  moderated,  but  it  is  not 
yet  wholly  extinct.  I  asked  an  intelligent  member  of  the 
Mexican  Congress  how  it  was  that,  instead  of  submitting 
quietly  to  the  result  of  an  election,  as  we  here  submit,  even 
when  it  is  pretty  manifest  that  the  successful  party  has  used 
unfair  means,  his  countrymen  so  often  resort  to  the  sword,  as 
if  the  question  of  fairness  could  be  settled  by  cutting  each 
others'  throats.  "  It  is  in  our  blood,"  he  answered ;  "  it  is 
owing  to  the  impatience  of  our  temperament.  The  cure  must 
be  to  invite  emigration  from  countries  like  yours,  where  the 
popular  vote  decides  the  matter,  and  the  beaten  party  takes 
its  revenge  by  obtaining  the  majority  at  the  next  election." 
The  remedy  is  a  sure  one,  but  there  is  this  difficulty  in  apply- 
ing it,  that  the  emigrants  will  not  arrive  until  the  evil  shall  be 
already  cured  and  the  country  in  a  state  of  perfect  quiet. 

Yet  there  are  changes  going  on  in  Mexico  as  great  as 
would  be  this  of  quietly  submitting  to  an  election  without  an 
immediate  revolt.  I  once  heard  Mr.  Peter  Cooper,  the  New 
York  philanthropist,  relate  an  incident  which  happened  some 


VOL.   II. — 12 


172  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

years  since,  while  his  brother  was  residing  for  a  few  months 
in  the  city  of  Mexico.  A  procession  passed  through  the 
streets  bearing  the  Host,  or  consecrated  wafer,  probably  to 
some  rich  person.  All  the  people  in  the  street  kneeled  save 
an  American  who  kept  a  little  shoe-shop  and  happened  to  be 
standing  at  its  door.  One  of  the  crowd  struck  at  him  to  make 
him  kneel,  on  which  he  retreated  into  his  shop.  This  so  en- 
raged the  people  in  the  street  that  several  rushed  after  him 
into  the  shop,  and  one  of  them,  with  a  dagger,  gave  him  a  mor- 
tal wound.  The  American  consul  was  informed  of  the  murder 
without  delay,  and  he  applied  to  the  proper  authorities,  requir- 
ing them  to  bring  the  offender  to  justice.  He  was  told  that 
nothing  could  be  done,  for  such  was  the  temper  of  the  populace 
that,  if  any  steps  were  taken  to  punish  the  guilty  man,  the 
house  of  his  victim  would  undoubtedly  be  pulled  down  and 
its  inmates  torn  in  pieces.  Such  was  Mexico  not  long  since. 
This  savage  fanaticism  has  had  its  day.  Now  the  Host  is  not 
permitted  to  be  openly  carried  through  the  streets.  Protestant 
worship  is  held  in  churches  with  doors  opening  upon  the  pub- 
lic way,  and  the  worshippers  are  not  molested. 

I  have  heard  of  a  method  taken  to  put  an  end  to  these 
demonstrations  of  reverence  for  the  Host  in  the  streets  which 
is  more  remarkable  for  its  ingenuity  than  its  decorum.  After 
the  laws  of  reform  had  required  the  Host  to  be  carried  only 
in  a  close  carriage,  the  priests  made  the  driver  lay  aside  his 
hat  while  he  passed  slowly  on  his  way.  The  populace  were 
given  to  understand  that  when  they  saw  a  carriage  slowly 
driven  by  a  man  without  a  hat,  it  contained  the  consecrated 
wafer,  and,  of  course,  the  real  presence.  Accordingly,  all 
kneeled  as  they  had  been  wont  to  do  when  the  Host  was  borne 
openly  by  the  priests.  One  day  a  carriage  was  seen  to  pass, 
driven  with  great  deliberation  by  a  solemn-looking  coachman 
without  a  hat,  through  one  of  the  principal  streets.  The  foot- 
passengers  on  the  right  and  left  all  kneeled  in  worship.  At 
a  place  where  the  crowd  was  most  numerous  the  carriage 
stopped,  and  two  women,  notoriously  of  the  most  degraded 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  173 

and  shameless  class,  got  out  of  it,  to  the  great  confusion  of  the 
worshippers.  This,  I  was  told,  put  an  end  to  the  adoration  of 
the  Host  in  the  public  streets,  and  nobody  is  likely  hereafter 
to  be  murdered  for  declining  to  show  it  the  accustomed  rev- 
erence. 

Other  changes  have  been  made  in  the  customs  of  the  coun- 
try. There  is  scarce  any  public  entertainment  so  well  adapted 
to  encourage  and  cherish  a  spirit  of  cruelty  in  a  people  as 
the  bull-fights  of  Spain.  When  I  came  to  Vera  Cruz  I  heard 
something  said  about  the  Plaza  de  Toros.  "  Where  are  your 
bull-fights  held?"  I  innocently  asked.  "They  are  held  no 
longer,"  I  was  answered.  "  They  are  forbidden  by  law."  Here 
are  two  important  steps  taken  in  civilization — the  extinction 
of  a  fierce  religious  fanaticism,  and  the  suppression  of  one  of 
the  most  cruel  of  public  spectacles  known  to  modern  times. 
Who  shall  say  that  the  country  which  has  made  these  ad- 
vances may  not  yet  accustom  itself  to  submit  quietly  to  the 
arbitrament  of  the  ballot,  as  a  lesson  learned  from  a  long  series 
of  bloody  experiences  ? 

There  is  one  peculiarity  in  the  political  constitution  of 
Mexico  which  must  be  done  away,  or  it  will  prove  a  serious 
obstacle  to  her  prosperity.  Spain  left,  as  an  unhappy  legacy 
to  the  republic,  the  practice  of  requiring  duties  to  be  paid  at 
the  frontiers  of  the  different  provinces  on  merchandise  con- 
veyed from  one  of  them  to  another.  The  several  states  which 
comprise  the  republic  are  now  accustomed  in  this  way  to 
raise  the  revenue  which  each  state  requires,  and  there  seems 
to  be  little  disposition  to  renounce  the  system.  According  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  protectionists,  this  should  result  in  making 
each  state  the  richer  by  taxing  heavily  the  products  of  its 
sister  states.  It  is  felt,  however,  as  a  cruel  burden  upon  the 
industry  and  internal  trade  of  the  country,  and  it  must  be 
thrown  off  before  the  republic  can  fully  avail  itself  of  its  own 
rich  and  numerous  resources. 

MEXICO,  MARCH  nth :  One  of  the  curiosities  of  Mexico  is 
the  Peiion  Nuevo,  or  New  Crag,  a  rocky  eminence  close  to  the 


!74  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

Lake  of  Tezcoco,  which  I  visited  the  other  morning.  It  is  a 
great  volcanic  rock  of  no  very  remote  origin,  from  the  sum- 
mit of  which  you  have  a  noble  view  of  the  plain  of  Mexico,  of 
its  mountain  barriers,  and  the  city,  and  the  broad  lakes.  The 
crest  of  the  rock  leans  to  the  south,  and  there  overhangs  its 
base,  looking  as  if,  when  the  huge  billow  of  molten  lava  was 
spouted  into  the  air,  the  wind  had  swayed  it  from  the  perpen- 
dicular, and  it  had  cooled  and  stiffened  as  it  was  about  to  fall, 
forming  several  caverns  on  the  side  opposite  to  the  wind.  In 
these  chambers  of  the  rock  live  two  or  three  Indian  families 
and  their  dogs.  The  wild-looking  inmates,  with  their  children, 
came  about  us,  as  we  peeped  into  these  strange  abodes,  and 
wanted  money.  The  women  were  cooking  fish,  caught  in  the 
lake  close  at  hand.  I  went  to  the  lake,  and  on  my  way  passed 
a  warm  spring  smoking  from  the  ground ;  the  internal  fires 
which  caused  the  eruption  of  the  lava  are  smouldering  yet. 
The  water  of  the  lake  is  salt,  though  not  intensely  so,  and  the 
neighboring  soil  is  so  impregnated  with  salt  that  the  Indians 
extract  from  it  a  dark-colored  salt  by  passing  water  through  it. 
Not  far  from  the  Penon  are  some  half-ruinous  buildings  enclos- 
ing a  hot  spring,  to  which  invalids  resort,  and  an  old  church, 
in  the  shadow  of  which  some  of  them  have  found  a  grave. 

We  returned  to  town  over  the  extensive  low  grounds,  now 
dry,  but  elevated  only  two  or  three  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
lake,  and  therefore  sure  to  be  laid  under  water  when  the  copi- 
ous summer  rains,  falling  on  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  are 
gathered  in  the  great  basin  of  the  Mexican  valley.  We  break- 
fasted at  the  Tivoli  Gardens,  to  which  we  were  taken  by  the 
American  consul,  Dr.  Skelton.  This  is  a  favorite  resort  of  the 
Mexicans,  and  often  the  place  of  their  public  banquets.  For 
this  purpose  there  are  broad  galleries  open  to  the  air,  but 
under  a  roof,  while  for  small  parties  there  are  little  summer- 
houses  beneath  the  shade  of  great  trees.  Rivulets  of  water 
keep  up  a  perpetual  verdure ;  there  is  a  turf  always  green, 
and  flowers  always  in  bloom.  For  the  recreation  of  visitors, 
there  are  three  or  four  bowling-alleys. 


A    VISIT   TO  MEXICO. 


175 


It  was  a  holiday,  and  we  went  to  the  Vega,  a  public  drive 
just  without  the  city,  beside  the  canal  which  connects  the  salt 
lake  of  Tezcoco  with  the  fresh-water  lake  of  Chalco.  This 
time  we  found  the  ground  sufficiently  watered  to  keep  the 
dust  in  its  place,  and  all  the  finest  equipages  in  Mexico  were 
out,  with  many  of  humbler  pretensions,  passing  and  repassing 
each  other  as  they  drove  backward  and  forward.  Sometimes 
the  equipage  was  a  neat  carriage  drawn  by  a  pair  of  mules, 
the  handsomest  creatures  of  their  kind  that  I  ever  saw,  with  a 
spirited  look  which  they  certainly  do  not  inherit  from  the 
parent  donkey.  Mingled  among  these  were  horsemen  with 
their  handsome  barbs,  their  massive,  glittering  stirrups  and 
spurs  and  showy  saddles,  their  slashed  pantaloons,  their  gay 
sarapes  of  many  colors,  and  their  broad-brimmed  white  hats, 
with  ornaments  of  silver.  The  Mexicans  ride  well  and  grace- 
fully, and  sit  their  horses  in  such  a  manner  that  the  rider 
seems  a  part  of  the  animal.  On  the  canal,  which  bordered  this 
public  drive,  flat-boats,  some  of  them  quite  large,  were  pass- 
ing, filled  with  people  from  the  Indian  villages  south  of  the 
city  :  women  with  chaplets  of  flowers  on  their  heads,  and 
young  people  dancing,  with  a  slow,  swaying  motion — for  there 
was  no  capering — to  the  light  sound  of  some  musical  instru- 
ment as  their  boat  slid  along  the  water.  By  the  canal,  and 
under  the  trees  which  bordered  it,  sat  people  who  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  spectacle  of  the  showy  equipages,  and  still  more 
showy  cavaliers  on  horseback,  quite  as  much  as  those  who 
sat  in  the  carriages.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  Vega  were 
people  grouped  about  the  houses  of  entertainment  under  the 
trees,  some  of  whom  were  amusing  themselves  with  swings. 
As  the  sun  touched  the  horizon  the  carriages  turned  home- 
ward, the  foot-passengers  trooped  toward  the  town,  and  the 
flat-boats  disappeared  from  the  canals. 

The  next  day,  in  company  with  Mr.  Porter  Bliss,  the 
American  Secretary  of  Legation,  we  explored  the  canal. 
Going  to  the  Paseo  de  la  Vega,  we  took  one  of  the  boats,  with 
two  men  carrying  poles  to  push  it  forward  and  guide  its 


176  SKETCHES  OF   TRAVEL. 

course,  and  soon  came  to  the  narrow  fields  enclosed  by  canals 
which  are  called  the  chinampas,  and  are  all  that  remains  of 
the  floating  gardens  spoken  of  in  Mexican  history.  They  are 
as  fast  at  the  present  time  as  any  of  the  meadows  in  the  valley 
of  Mexico.  Here  are  cultivated  all  the  garden  vegetables  of 
temperate  climates — every  root  that  comes  upon  the  dinner- 
table,  and  a  great  variety  of  fruits.  The  peach  and  almond 
were  now  in  full  bloom,  and  the  fruit  of  the  apricot  was,  as  the 
gardeners  say,  already  set.  The  brown  cultivators  of  these 
gardens  were  busy  in  places  with  a  sort  of  long-handled  ladle, 
scooping  up  the  water  from  the  canals  and  flinging  it  upon 
the  thirsty  little  islands.  We  passed  the  Indian  town  of  Santa 
Anita  to  another  named  Ixtacaleo,  where  we  landed.  There 
an  artesian  well  had  been  sunk,  where  the  cool  water  of  the 
brightest  transparency  gushes  up  with  force  from  the  ground, 
filling  a  spacious  tank,  and  then  running  off  into  the  canal. 
An  old  church  was  near,  with  graves  by  its  side,  only  one  or 
two  of  which  had  any  monumental  stone.  The  rest  were 
dusty  hillocks,  the  newest  of  which  had  little  crosses  made  of 
reed  planted  at  the  head.  We  returned  to  the  town  of  Santa 
Anita,  where  the  Indian  cooks  gave  us  a  breakfast  of  choco- 
late, which  here  in  Mexico  is  excellently  well  prepared,  eggs, 
and  frifoles,  or  beans,  together  with  a  roast  chicken.  But  the 
most  palatable  dish — so  I  thought — was  that  which  they  call 
tamales,  made  of  the  meal  of  Indian-corn  baked  in  the  husks 
of  the  ear.  The  Indians  often  eat  them  seasoned  with  red 
pepper,  enchiladas,  as  their  phrase  is,  but  a  single  trial  of  the 
tamales  prepared  in  this  manner  set  my  mouth  on  fire  and 
satisfied  me. 

While  the  Indian  women  were  preparing  our  breakfast  we 
looked  about  us.  The  place  which  we  were  in  was  evidently 
a  great  resort  on  holidays,  for  here  were  counters  for  dispens- 
ing pulque  and  other  beverages,  on  the  walls  of  which  were 
drawings  rudely  executed  by  Aztec  artists,  accompanied  by 
ill-spelled  inscriptions,  mostly  in  rhyme,  by  the  village  poets. 
I  could  not  help  comparing  this  simple  breakfast,  furnished 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO. 


177 


by  the  coarse  cookery  of  these  Indian  villagers,  with  one  at 
which  I  was  present  a  few  days  before,  at  Tacubaya,  on  the 
gentle  declivities  which  overlook  the  city  from  the  west.  A 
Scottish  merchant  invited  a  large  party,  including  several 
ladies,  to  breakfast  on  the  Barron  estate,  a  fine  country  seat, 
kept  in  the  most  scrupulous  order,  although  no  one  ventures 
to  live  there,  or  even  to  pass  the  night,  on  account  of  the  fre- 
quent robberies  which  are  committed  in  the  neighborhood. 
The  founder  of  the  Barron  family  was  from  Ireland,  and  is 
said  to  have  made  his  immense  wealth  by  trade,  not  without 
the  suspicion  of  having  benefited  the  community  in  the  way 
approved  by  Jeremy  Bentham — that  is  to  say,  by  redressing 
the  rigors  of  a  tyrannical  system  of  revenue  laws.  However 
this  may  be,  the  mansion  of  the  place  is  a  palace,  and  the 
grounds — with  their  shady  walks,  and  fragrant,  blossoming 
thickets,  and  smooth  lawns,  and  groups  of  trees  laden  with 
tropical  fruits,  and  little  streams  traversing  the  ever-verdant 
groves,  and  sheets  of  water  reflecting  beds  of  roses  in  bloom — 
are  as  beautiful  as  any  one  can  imagine.  We  were  on  the 
spot  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  the  breakfast  was  to  begin  not 
far  from  that  time ;  but  one  or  two  of  the  guests,  the  most 
distinguished,  were  late  in  arriving,  and  we  did  not  sit  down 
till  nearly  one.  But  the  breakfast — if  I  were  to  describe  it,  I 
could  hardly  do  better  than  to  borrow  the  words  of  Milton  in 
"  Paradise  Regained,"  in  which  he  gives  the  bill  of  fare  pro- 
vided by  the  Tempter  in  the  wilderness.  It  was  too  sumptu- 
ous and  exquisite  to  be  soon  over ;  and  when  we  rose  from 
the  table  the  rain,  a  most  unusual  circumstance  at  this  season 
of  the  year,  was  beating  on  the  roof.  Ere  long,  however,  the 
clouds  dispersed,  the  air  was  the  clearer  for  the  shower,  and 
the  volcano  of  Popocatepetl,  which  in  the  winter  is  generally 
concealed  from  sight  by  the  haze,  showed  its  white  summit 
in  the  bright  sunshine  of  mid-heaven.  Then  there  were  the 
grounds  to  look  at  again,  and  the  bowling-alley  to  visit,  where 
the  ladies  distinguished  themselves  by  their  address  in  knock- 
ing down  the  pins,  and  thus  the  short  space  between  the 


I78  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

breakfast  and  the  hour  of  sunset  was  passed.  Suddenly 
toward  sunset  we  saw  the  attendants  busy  in  packing  up  the 
plate  and  china  in  order  to  take  them  back  to  the  city,  and  we 
all  got  into  our  carriages  again,  to  return  from  a  breakfast 
which  might  be  almost  said  to  have  taken  up  the  whole  day. 

In  the  afternoon  we  visited  the  Museum  of  Antiquities,  to 
which  the  Minister  of  Justice,  Senor  Alcarras,  was  kind  enough 
to  accompany  us.  The  samples  of  ancient  Aztec  pottery,  the 
hideous  idols,  the  implements  and  ornaments  of  stone,  and 
the  sharp  blades  of  obsidian,  or  volcanic  glass,  which  before 
the  Spanish  conquest  were  used  as  knives,  are  curious,  but 
the  description  of  them  would  be  tiresome ;  only  engravings 
can  give  anything  like  an  accurate  idea  of  them.  Under  the 
same  roof  is  a  cabinet  of  natural  history,  which  seemed  to  me 
well  arranged.  I  should  here  mention  an  earlier  visit  to  the 
Mexican  Academy  of  Arts.  Here  is  an  ample  collection  of 
casts  from  the  antique,  much  larger  than  I  expected  to  see ; 
here  are  also  a  great  number  of  Mexican  pictures,  centuries 
old,  of  quaint  designs,  yet  not  without  talent ;  but  of  the  works 
of  eminent  European  painters,  by  the  example  of  which  the 
pupil  might  be  guided  in  his  art,  there  are  very  few.  I  saw, 
however,  recent  pictures  by  native  artists,  which  bespeak  the 
possession  of  a  decided  talent  for  the  art.  Among  them  was 
a  picture  of  Dante  and  Virgil  looking  over  a  precipice  into  the 
fiery  gulf  prepared  for  the  wicked,  by  Raphael  Flores.  Other 
pictures  of  merit  were  "  Cimabue,  in  Company  with  Giotto," 
by  Obregon ;  "  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac,"  by  Santiago  Rabull ; 
"  Ishmael,"  by  Pablo  Valdez ;  "  San  Carlos  Borromeo  Distrib- 
uting Alms,"  by  Salome  Pifia,  and  a  "  Christ,"  by  Ramon 
Sagrado.  There  were  also  some  creditable  samples  of  Mexican 
statuary,  among  which  I  saw  a  statue,  yet  in  plaster,  of  San 
Carlos  Borromeo  and  a  child.  Of  Mexican  engravings  I  saw 
no  example.  The  artist  here  finds  two  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  his  success.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  few  good  pictures 
from  which  he  can  obtain  an  idea  of  his  art  in  its  highest 
forms  of  excellence.  In  the  second  place — and  perhaps  I 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  179 

ought  to  have  put  this  first — there  are  few  persons  here  who 
buy  pictures.  I  was  told  of  native  artists,  who  had  given 
proofs  of  no  little  talent,  that  they  had  been  obliged  to  take 
to  making  shoes. 

The  art  of  music  is  cultivated  with  some  zeal.  There  is  a 
philharmonic  society  here,  and  I  attended  one  of  its  concerts, 
as  an  honorary  member  newly  installed.  The  piano  was 
played  with  a  skilful  execution,  and  a  choral  melody  was  sung 
by  several  young  girls  in  white.  They  sang  with  a  precision 
which  showed,  I  thought,  careful  training  and  accurate  musi- 
cal perception  ;  but  there  was  something  sharp  and  stridulous 
in  their  voices.  A  few  evenings  since  I  heard,  at  an  evening 
party,  Sefiorita  Peratta,  famed  for  the  sweetness  of  her  voice. 
"The  Mexicans,"  said  a  gentleman  who  was  present,  "are 
proud  of  Peratta,  and  with  reason.  She  sings  well ;  but  she 
did  not  succeed  in  Paris.  Her  very  plain  face  and  ungraceful 
action  carried  the  day  against  the  voice,  and  she  returned  to 
Mexico." 

But  what  of  the  literature  of  Mexico  ?  Of  that,  as  I  know 
but  little  yet,  I  can  say  but  little.  But  Mexico  has  her  men  of 
science,  her  eloquent  orators,  her  eminent  antiquaries,  her  his- 
torians, her  successful  novelists,  and  her  poets,  who,  I  am  told, 
are  numerous,  so  easily  does  the  melodious  language  spoken 
here  run  into  verse.  All  who  have  obtained  distinction  in 
this  way  are  gathered  into  an  association  called  the  Geo- 
graphical and  Statistical  Society — a  very  narrow  appellation 
for  one  which  embraces  so  wide  a  circle  of  notabilities.  , 

I  was  present  the  other  day  at  one  of  the  meetings  of  this 
society,  at  which  several  persons  were  admitted  as  members, 
of  whom  I  had  the  honor  to  be  one.  It  was  held  in  the  Mi- 
nerfa,  or  School  of  Mines,  one  of  the  finest  buildings  in  Mexico, 
stately  and  spacious,  with  airy  galleries  surrounding  an  inner 
square,  and  with  ample  rooms  for  its  cabinets  of  minerals  and 
its  fossil  animal  remains,  which  had  a  somewhat  meagre  ap- 
pearance in  so  extensive  a  receptacle.  The  members  assem- 
bled in  a  large  hall  capable  of  holding  several  thousand  people ; 


180  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

the  Ministro  de  Fomento,  an  officer  of  the  government  who  an- 
swers to  our  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  presided,  and  honored 
the  occasion  with  an  animated  speech.  By  his  side  sat  a 
gentleman,  evidently  of  the  pure  Aztec  race,  who,  I  was  told, 
generally  presided  at  the  meetings  of  the  society  ;  it  was  Sefior 
Ramirez,  the  vice-president.  At  a  desk  in  front  of  the  presi- 
dent sat  Sefior  Attamirano,  the  first  secretary,  who  bore 
equally  manifest  tokens  of  Aztec  descent.  Many  of  these  de- 
scendants of  the  people  subdued  by  Cortes  are  men  of  culti- 
vated minds  and  engaging  manners.  The  greater  part  of  the 
works  of  art  in  the  galleries  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  from 
their  hands. 

I  was  curious  to  see  the  Monte  Pio,  a  national  institution 
for  lending  money  on  pledges  of  personal  property,  and,  ac- 
cordingly, Mr.  Bliss  conducted  us  thither.  It  occupies  what 
was  once  the  palace  of  Cortes,  looking  upon  the  cathedral 
square,  and  built,  it  is  said,  on  the  very  spot  where  stood  the 
royal  dwelling  of  Montezuma.  Cortes  must  have  brought 
over  from  Spain  his  artisans  to  hew  and  lay  the  stones  of  this 
massive  structure,  which  has  furnished  a  pattern  for  all  the 
mansions  of  the  wealthy  residents  of  Mexico  which  have  been 
built  since. 

I  found  the  great  building  filled,  from  the  ground-floor  to 
the  roof,  with  articles  pawned  by  persons  in  need.  The  lower 
part,  under  the  galleries,  was  crowded  with  every  kind  of 
carriage,  from  the  heavy  family  coach  to  the  light  gig,  and 
with  every  movable  that  could  be  sold  for  money.  In  another 
part  of  the  building,  in  a  well-secured  apartment,  and  kept  in 
drawers  safely  locked,  are  jewels  of  every  kind — diamonds, 
rubies,  pearls,  sapphires,  and  the  like,  in  the  shape  of  wreaths 
for  the  brow,  necklaces,  bracelets,  ear-drops,  and  every  kind  of 
ornament  worn  by  women.  Elsewhere  I  saw  garments  of 
various  kinds,  from  the  most  costly  silks  and  shawls  to  the 
plainest  chintzes  and  coarsest  handkerchiefs.  All  these  things 
are  appraised  at  their  just  value,  from  which  the  interest  for 
six  months  is  deducted  and  the  remainder  paid  to  the  owner. 


A    VISIT   TO  MEXICO.  !8! 

At  the  end  of  six  months  the  objects  pawned  are  sold  by  auc- 
tion, and  if  they  bring  more  than  the  original  valuation,  the 
owner  receives  the  difference.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  the 
institution  is  managed  with  perfect  integrity — at  least  in  such 
a  manner  that  there  is  no  complaint  of  unfairness  or  wrong. 
I  could  not  help  thinking,  with  shame,  of  the  extent  to  which 
some  of  our  own  savings  banks,  established  under  pretence  of 
aiding  the  poorer  class,  have  swindled  those  who  gave  them 
their  confidence,  and  was  obliged  to  own  to  myself  that  Mexico, 
in  this  respect,  was  more  honest  than  New  York. 

VERA  CRUZ,  MARCH  2oth :  I  left  Mexico  by  rail  on  the 
morning  of  the  I3th  of  March,  regretting  that  my  plans  did 
not  allow  me  to  give  more  time  to  a  place  so  interesting  in 
many  respects — the  history  of  which  is  so  full  of  remarkable 
incidents,  the  people  of  which  have  so  many  quaint  peculair- 
ities,  and  the  physical  geography  of  which  is  so  different 
from  that  of  any  country  which  I  had  ever  seen.  Several  of 
the  acquaintances  whom  we  had  made  at  Mexico  kindly  came 
to  see  us  off  at  the  station. 

Soon  after  issuing  from  the  city,  we  passed,  at  a  consider- 
able distance  from  us  on  the  right,  a  small  village  of  mud  cab- 
ins, to  which  a  fellow-passenger  directed  our  attention.  "  There 
lives,"  he  said,  "  a  peculiar  tribe  of  people,  of  the  most  de- 
graded and  beastly  habits.  There  are  no  marriages  among 
them,  and  their  practices  are  free  love  in  its  grossest  form. 
Incest  of  the  most  revolting  kind  is  common,  and  there  is  the 
utmost  confusion  of  kindred." 

One  of  the  cars  attached  to  the  train  on  which  we  travelled 
was  full  of  armed  men,  so  that  we  regarded  ourselves  as  secure 
against  any  attack  from  those  who  rob  travellers  in  the  name 
of  what  they  call  the  revolution.  At  one  of  the  stations  where 
we  stopped  we  found  an  intrenchment  and  breastworks  thrown 
up  to  defend  the  trains,  while  they  stopped,  against  robbers 
coming  upon  them  from  the  hills  that  lay  to  the  north  of  the 
track. 

Soon  after  leaving  the  capital  we  were  among  the  fields  of 


1 82  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

maguey,  the  plant  with  stiff,  thick,  dark-green  leaves,  from 
which  the  common  drink  of  the  country,  called  pulque,  is 
drawn.  On  each  side  we  saw  them  stretching  away  over  the 
champaign  country  to  the  bare  hills  that  enclose  it.  Near  at 
hand  the  broad  spaces,  left  for  other  crops,  between  the  rows 
were  visible  to  the  eye,  but  at  a  distance  the  rows  seemed  to 
run  together,  and  the  earth  was  completely  hidden,  for  leagues 
around,  under  what  seemed  to  the  sight  a  close  mass  of  dark- 
green  leaves.  This  plant,  after  several  years'  cultivation  and 
growth,  suddenly  sends  up  a  thick,  vigorous  stem.  Into  this 
the  sap  of  the  plant,  a  milky  juice,  flows  rapidly,  pushing  it 
upward  to  the  height  of  some  fifteen  feet,  when  its  summit 
puts  forth  horizontal  branches  hung  with  flowers.  If  left  to 
itself,  it  there  perfects  its  seeds,  and  then  the  plant  perishes. 
But  the  Mexican,  while  the  sap  is  rushing  upward,  cuts  off  the 
stem  at  its  base,  and  there  scoops  out  a  sort  of  basin  among 
the  leaves  near  the  root.  Into  this  the  sap  intended  for  the 
stem — the  Mexicans  call  it  the  milk,  from  its  color — flows  in 
great  abundance,  and,  with  the  help  of  a  tube  at  the  mouth  of 
an  Aztec  laborer,  is  drawn  out  by  suction.  This,  when  fer- 
mented, is  the  pulque,  the  ordinary  drink  of  the  country,  and 
by  distillation  yields  a  spirit  like  whiskey.  To  one  who  at 
this  season  casts  his  eyes  over  the  country  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  there  was  nothing  but  the  maguey  cultivated,  so  few 
are  the  other  crops  at  this  time  of  the  year,  and  such  is  the 
great  breadth  of  the  region  occupied  by  this  plant.  The  rail- 
ways also  attest  the  extent  of  this  traffic.  The  freight-trains 
drag  huge  cars  loaded  with  it  in  barrels,  and  also  in  skins,  the 
primitive  method  of  keeping  wine  in  Spain.  At  the  railway 
stations  were  piles  of  barrels  and  huge  heaps  of  skins  filled 
with  pulque  waiting  their  turn  to  be  transported  to  market. 
"  This  pulque,''  said  a  Mexican  gentleman  to  me,  "  this  pulque 
and  the  spirit  drawn  from  it  are  the  bane  of  our  country.  It 
is  drunk  immoderately,  and  our  people,  when  full  of  pulque,  are 
good  for  nothing.  We  must  contrive  to  wean  them  from  its 
use  if  we  mean  that  our  country  shall  advance  in  civilization." 


A   VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  183 

Of  course,  here  is  an  ample  field  for  the  apostles  of  temper- 
ance. I  was  amused  by  hearing  a  young  Englishman,  lately 
arrived,  whom  we  saw  at  Fortin,  say  very  innocently  that  he 
had  fallen  in  with  some  Indians  who  had  been  drinking  a  kind 
of  sour  wine — meaning  their  pulque.  .  It  disagreed  with  them, 
he  said,  and  made  them  sick. 

The  train  arrived  at  Puebla  a  little  before  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  and  we  hired  a  carriage  to  take  us  to  the  pyra- 
mid of  Cholula,  in  the  neighborhood.  We  had  been  told  in 
Mexico  that  this  excursion  would  not  be  quite  safe  without  an 
escort,  but  at  Puebla  they  laughed  at  this  apprehension,  and 
we  determined  to  go.  So  we  went  by  one  of  these  rough, 
neglected  Mexican  roads,  through  brown  pasture-grounds,  and 
russet  fallows,  and  fields  of  maguey,  and,  crossing  a  little  river 
overhung  with  trees  in  full  leaf,  came  at  length  to  the  decayed 
little  town  of  Cholula.  Here  is  a  conical  hill,  apparently  of 
dark-colored  earth,  two  hundred  feet  high.  Examine  it,  and 
you  see  that  it  is  composed  of  tiers  of  sun-dried  brick,  with 
many  fragments  of  pottery  and  small,  rough  stones,  and  here 
and  there  a  horizontal  line  of  a  whitish  mortar — all  evidently 
built  up  from  the  level  plain.  On  its  broad  sides  grew  shrubs 
and  trees,  and  in  one  or  two  places  the  ground  had  been  ter- 
raced and  cultivated.  At  the  top  is  a  broad,  level  space  where 
the  Aztecs  once  worshipped,  but  now  a  church  is  standing — 
an  old  building,  but  undergoing  repairs,  which,  I  was  told, 
were  done  by  subscription,  the  government  neither  building 
nor  repairing  any  more  churches.  The  interior  of  the  build- 
ing was  in  good  taste  and  really  beautiful.  From  the  summit 
we  had  an  extensive  view — the  little  town  of  Cholula,  im- 
mediately below,  once  swarming  with  inhabitants,  but  now 
scarcely  more  than  a  hamlet,  yet  with  half  a  dozen  churches ; 
green  fields  artificially  watered,  roads  crossing  each  other, 
bordered  with  rows  of  the  dark-green  maguey,  the  spires  of 
Puebla  in  the  distance,  and  that  circle  of  mountains  which 
everywhere  embraces  these  upland  plains.  Near  this  pyramid 
is  a  smaller  one,  on  the  top  of  which  we  found  small  Aztec 


184  SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

knife-blades  of  obsidian  or  volcanic  glass ;  and  yet  another, 
the  sloping  parts  of  which  had  been  cut  down  and  carried 
away,  leaving  the  sides  completely  perpendicular,  and,  as  I 
judged,  almost  forty  feet  high. 

Returning  to  Puebla,  I  waited  on  General  Alatorre,  to 
whom  I  had  a  letter  from  the  Minister  of  War,  Senor  Balcar- 
cel,  procured  for  me  by  the  kindness  of  Senor  Romero,  requir- 
ing him  to  furnish  me  with  an  escort  to  Orizaba.  I  found  a 
handsome  man  of  a  fine  military  presence,  who  asked  me  if  it 
was  necessary  that  I  should  set  out  next  day.  "  It  is  neces- 
sary," I  answered,  "in  order  to  arrive  seasonably  at  Vera 
Cruz."  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  must  send  a  messenger  to  some 
distance  for  the  cavalry  you  will  want." 

The  escort  was  ready  to  proceed  with  us  the  next  morning 
— thirteen  men,  good  riders,  all  well  mounted,  and  armed  with 
carbines.  There  were  four  of  our  party  ;  we  had  taken  a  dili- 
gence as  far  as  Orizaba  for  ourselves  only,  and  we  were  about 
to  set  out,  when  two  gentlemen  from  Guadalajara,  who  were 
about  to  proceed  first  to  the  United  States  and  then  to  Eng- 
land, asked  leave  to  take  seats  with  us.  We  gave  our  consent, 
and  had  no  reason  to  regret  it.  They  were  courteous,  intelli- 
gent men,  and  no  smokers,  one  of  them  about  thirty-two  years 
of  age,  and  the  other  a  little  more  than  ten  years  younger. 
They  were  lawyers  going  abroad  to  make  themselves  ac- 
quainted with  the  jurisprudence  of  our  own  country  and  that 
of  England.  Both  had  some  knowledge  of  English  ;  the  mem- 
ory of  the  elder  one  was  well  stored  with  passages  from  Mil- 
ton's "  Paradise  Lost,"  and  he  repeated  them  with  an  accent 
which  the  residence  of  a  few  months  among  those  who  speak 
our  language  can  hardly  fail  to  improve. 

We  were  joined  by  another  diligence,  containing  a  Mexi- 
can family,  and  traversed  again  those  arid  plains  encircled  by 
mountains,  our  armed  escort  trotting  faithfully  by  our  side. 
We  met  with  no  enemy  save  the  dust  rising  from  roads  where 
the  earth,  by  the  constant  passing  of  heavy  vehicles,  had  been 
ground  into  powder,  from  which  we  protected  our  eyes  and 


A    VISIT  TO  MEXICO.  185 

nostrils  by  gauze  veils.  Before  the  day  ended,  our  escort  had 
stopped  and  had  been  relieved  by  another  of  the  same  number. 
But  instead  of  caps,  our  new  protectors  wore  broad-brimmed 
white  hats,  and  leathern  pantaloons  instead  of  woollen  ones. 
Another  night  at  San  Agustin  de  Palmar  and  another  day 
on  the  dusty,  uneven  road  to  the  heights  of  Aculcingo,  upon 
reaching  which  our  escort  was  again  changed.  Let  me  say 
here  that  there  will  be  no  occasion  for  any  further  complaints 
of  this  road  after  the  present  year  has  closed.  On  the  3ist 
of  December  the  railway  from  Mexico  to  Vera  Cruz  is  to  be 
finished,  and  the  journey  between  the  cities  will  be  made  in  a 
single  day. 


II. 
OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


VOL.   II.— 13 


LOUIS  KOSSUTH; 


LET  me  ask  you  to  imagine  that  the  contest  in  which  the 
United  States  asserted  their  independence  of  Great  Britain 
had  closed  in  disaster  and  defeat ;  that  our  armies,  through 
treason  and  a  league  of  tyrants  against  us,  had  been  broken 
and  scattered ;  that  the  great  men  who  led  them,  and  who 
swayed  our  councils — our  Washington,  our  Franklin,  the  ven- 
erable President  of  the  American  Congress,  and  their  illustri- 
ous associates — had  been  driven  forth  as  exiles.  If  there  had 


*  Although  the  newspapers  of  the  day  fell  into  the  habit  of  calling  Mr.  Bryant 
"  the  old  man  eloquent,"  he  was  not  an  orator  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term.  He 
wanted  the  passion  and  enthusiasm  that  are  necessary  to  the  orator.  But,  by  perse- 
verance and  hard  work  in  overcoming  his  native  shyness,  he  had  gradually  acquired 
an  easy  and  pleasant  way  of  addressing  public  assemblages,  and  toward  the  latter 
part  of  his  life  was  in  great  demand  as  a  public  speaker.  "  Few  occasions,"  as  Dr. 
George  Ripley  said  in  the  "  Tribune,"  "  were  considered  complete  without  his  pres- 
ence. He  was  always,"  Dr.  Ripley  continues,  "  the  honored  guest  of  the  evening, 
and  the  moment  in  which  he  was  to  be  called  upon  to  speak  was  awaited  with  eager 
expectation  that  never  ended  in  disappointment.  He  was  singularly  happy  in  seizing 
the  tone  of  the  company,  no  matter  what  were  the  circumstances  or  the  occasion  ; 
his  remarks  were  not  only  pertinent,  but  eminently  felicitous  ;  with  no  pretensions  to 
artificial  eloquence,  he  was  always  impressive,  often  pathetic,  and  sometimes  quietly 
humorous,  with  a  zest  and  pungency  that  touched  the  feelings  of  the  audience  to  the 
quick.  On  more  important  public  occasions,  when  the  principal  speech  of  the  day 
was  assigned  to  him,  he  discharged  the  trust  with  a  tranquil  dignity  of  manner,  a 
serene  self-possession,  and  an  amplitude  of  knowledge  and  illustration  that  invaria- 
bly won  the  admiration  of  the  spectators.  His  last  address  of  this  kind,  delivered, 


IQO  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

existed  at  that  day,  in  any  part  of  the  civilized  world,  a  pow- 
erful republic,  with  institutions  resting  on  the  same  founda- 
tions of  liberty  which  our  own  countrymen  sought  to  estab- 
lish, would  there  have  been  in  that  republic  any  hospitality 


on  the  day  of  his  fatal  attack,  at  the  unveiling  of  the  bust  of  Mazzini  in  Central 
Park,  was  a  masterpiece  of  descriptive  oratory,  unsurpassed  by  any  of  his  previous  ef- 
forts for  a  similar  purpose.  Never  was  there  a  more  just  or  feeling  tribute  to  the  Italian 
patriot.  Seldom  has  been  presented  a  more  discriminating  analysis  of  a  great  politi- 
cal career,  or  a  finer  portraiture  of  the  admirable  qualities  of  a  noble  and  heroic  per- 
sonage." 

Mr.  Bryant  usually  wrote  at  length  what  he  desired  to  say,  and  repeated  it  from 
memory  ;  but  sometimes  he  spoke  from  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  and  on  such  oc- 
casions generally  with  more  animation  and  earnestness  of  manner  than  was  custom- 
ary with  him  in  his  prepared  addresses.  But  whether  he  spoke  with  deliberation  or 
extemporaneously,  his  icmarks  were  sure  to  contain  some  wise  observation,  some 
scrap  of  learning,  some  agreeable  historical  reminiscence,  some  stroke  of  humor,  or 
some  felicity  of  phrase,  which  rendered  them  worthy  of  note.  For  this  reason  the 
editor  has  appended  to  his  more  careful  performances  several  little  public  addresses, 
or  after-dinner  talks,  which,  unimportant  in  themselves,  may  be  of  considerable 
interest  to  many  readers,  either  as  recalling  memorable  and  pleasant  unions,  or  as 
expressive  of  the  thoughts  and  sentiments  of  one  who,  by  his  early,  various,  and 
useful  labors,  was  regarded  not  only  as  the  pioneer  but  as  the  patriarch  of  our  poetic 
literature. 

One  of  the  first,  if  not  the  first,  of  Mr.  Bryant's  attempts  in  this  line  was  an 
address  as  president  of  the  banquet  given  by  the  Press  of  New  York  to  Louis  Kos- 
suth,  December  9, 1851.  While  he  was  in  Europe,  during  the  time  of  the  Hungarian 
War,  he  had  closely  followed  the  course  of  the  illustrious  patriot,  and  afterwards  was 
among  the  first  of  our  citizens  to  welcome  the  exile  to  our  shores.  His  admiration  of 
the  man  was  confirmed  by  their  brief  personal  intercourse  ;  and,  indeed,  it  was  im- 
possible for  any  one  to  come  in  contact  with  Kossuth  without  being  impressed  not 
only  by  his  extraordinary  talent  and  eloquence,  but  by  his  amiability,  earnestness, 
and  patriotism.  It  was  evident,  however,  at  the  same  time,  that  Kossuth,  through 
the  fervor  of  his  convictions  and  his  imaginative  exuberance,  was  living  in  something 
of  an  ideal  realm.  He  was  by  no  means  deficient  in  practical  skill ;  he  discovered, 
by  an  almost  intuitive  glance,  the  strong  or  the  weak  side  of  any  question  presented 
to  his  decision,  and  exerted  a  personal  magnetism,  which  enabled  him  to  control 
many  persons  of  every  class  whom  he  wished  to  influence  ;  but  the  poetical  element, 
discernible  in  his  conduct  as  in  his  sentiments,  which  fascinated  popular  feeling, 
was  apt  to  produce  in  hard-minded  practical  statesmen  and  managers  no  little  dis- 
trust. The  very  qualities  of  enthusiasm  and  hope,  which  attached  the  people  to  him 
and  his  cause,  estranged  others  less  susceptible,  in  spite  of  the  wonderful  fascinations 
of  his  addresses,  which  all  acknowledged.— ED. 


LOUIS  KOSSUTH.  I9! 

too  cordial,  any  sympathy  too  deep,  any  zeal  for  their  glorious 
but  unfortunate  cause  too  fervent  or  too  active  to  be  shown 
toward  these  illustrious  fugitives?  Gentlemen,  the  case  I 
have  supposed  is  before  you.  The  Washingtons,  the  Frank- 
lins of  Hungary,  her  sages,  her  legislators,  her  warriors,  ex- 
pelled by  a  far  worse  tyranny  than  was  ever  endured  here,  are 
wanderers  in  foreign  lands.  Some  of  them  are  within  our 
own  borders ;  one  of  them  sits  with  his  companions  as  our 
guest  to-night,  and  we  must  measure  the  duty  we  owe  them 
by  the  same  standard  which  we  would  have  had  history  apply 
if  our  ancestors  had  met  with  a  fate  like  theirs. 

I  have  compared  the  exiled  Hungarians  to  the  great  men 
of  our  own  history.  Difficulty,  my  brethren,  is  the  nurse  of 
greatness — a  harsh  nurse,  who  roughly  rocks  her  foster-chil- 
dren into  strength  and  athletic  proportions.  The  mind,  grap- 
pling with  great  aims  and  wrestling  with  mighty  impediments, 
grows  by  a  certain  necessity  to  their  stature.  Scarce  any- 
thing so  convinces  me  of  the  capacity  of  the  human  intellect 
for  indefinite  expansion  in  the  different  stages  of  its  being  as 
this  power  of  enlarging  itself  to  the  height  and  compass  of 
surrounding  emergencies.  These  men  have  been  trained  to 
greatness  by  a  quicker  and  surer  method  than  a  peaceful 
country  and  a  tranquil  period  can  know. 

But  it  is  not  merely,  or  even  principally,  for  their  personal 
qualities  that  we  honor  them ;  we  honor  them  for  the  cause 
in  which  they  so  gloriously  failed.  Great  issues  hung  upon 
that  cause,  and  great  interests  of  mankind  were  crushed  ,by  its 
downfall.  I  was  on  the  continent  of  Europe  when  the  treason 
of  Gorgey  laid  Hungary  bound  at  the  feet  of  the  Czar.  Eu- 
rope was  at  that  time  in  the  midst  of  the  reaction ;  the  ebb 
tide  was  rushing  violently  back,  sweeping  all  that  the  friends 
of  freedom  had  planned  into  the  black  bosom  of  the  deep.  In 
France  the  liberty  of  the  press  was  extinct ;  Paris  was  in  a 
state  of  siege  ;  the  soldiery  of  that  republic  had  just  quenched 
in  blood  the  freedom  of  Rome ;  Austria  had  suppressed  liberty 
in  northern  Italy  ;  absolutism  was  restored  in  Prussia ;  along 


I92  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  Rhine  and  its  tributaries,  and  in  the  towns  and  villages  of 
Wiirtemberg  and  Bavaria,  troops,  withdrawn  from  the  bar- 
racks and  garrisons,  filled  the  streets,  and  kept  the  inhabi- 
tants quiet  with  the  bayonet  at  their  breasts.  Hungary  at 
that  moment  alone  upheld — and  upheld  with  a  firm  hand  and 
dauntless  heart — the  blazing  torch  of  liberty.  To  Hungary 
were  turned  up  the  eyes,  to  Hungary  clung  the  hopes,  of  all 
who  did  not  despair  of  the  freedom  of  Europe. 

I  recollect  that,  while  the  armies  of  Russia  were  moving, 
like  the  tempest  from  the  north,  upon  the  Hungarian  host,  the 
progress  of  events  was  watched  with  the  deepest  solicitude  by 
the  people  of  Germany.  I  was  at  that  time  in  Munich,  the  splen- 
did capital  of  Bavaria.  The  Bavarians  seemed  for  the  time  to 
have  put  off  their  usual  character,  and  scrambled  for  the  daily 
prints,  wet  from  the  press,  with  such  eagerness  that  I  almost 
thought  myself  in  America.  The  news  of  the  catastrophe  at 
last  arrived ;  Gorgey  had  betrayed  the  cause  of  Hungary 
and  yielded  to  the  demands  of  the  Russians.  Immediately  a 
funeral  gloom  settled,  like  a  noon-day  darkness,  upon  the  city. 
I  heard  the  muttered  exclamations  of  the  people,  "  It  is  all 
over ;  the  last  hope  of  European  liberty  is  gone." 

Russia  did  not  misjudge.  If  she  had  allowed  Hungary  to 
become  independent  and  free,  the  reaction  in  favor  of  absolu- 
tism had  been  incomplete  :  there  would  have  been  one  perilous 
example  of  successful  resistance  to  despotism  ;  in  one  corner  of 
Europe  a  flame  would  have  been  kept  alive  at  which  the  other 
nations  might  have  rekindled  among  themselves  the  light  of 
liberty.  Hungary  was  subdued  ;  but  does  any  one  who  hears 
me  believe  that  the  present  state  of  things  in  Europe  will  last  ? 
The  despots  themselves  scarcely  believe  it ;  they  rule  in  con- 
stant fear,  and,  made  cruel  by  their  fears,  are  heaping  chain 
upon  chain  around  the  limbs  of  their  subjects. 

They  are  hastening  the  event  they  dread.  Every  added 
shackle  galls  into  a  more  fiery  impatience  those  who  are  con- 
demned to  wear  it.  I  look  with  mingled  hope  and  horror  to 
the  day — the  hope,  my  brethren,  predominates — a  day  blood- 


LOUIS  KOSSUTH. 


193 


ier,  perhaps,  than  we  have  seen  since  the  wars  of  Napoleon — 
when  the  exasperated  nations  shall  snap  their  chains  and  start 
to  their  feet.  It  may  well  be  that  Hungary — made  less  patient 
of  the  yoke  by  the  remembrance  of  her  own  many  and  glo- 
rious struggles  for  independence,  and  better  fitted  than  other 
nations,  by  the  peculiar  structure  of  her  institutions,  for  found- 
ing the  liberty  of  her  citizens  on  a  rational  basis — will  take  the 
lead.  In  that  glorious  and  hazardous  enterprise,  in  that  hour 
of  her  sore  need  and  peril,  I  hope  she  will  be  cheered  and 
strengthened  with  aid  from  this  side  the  Atlantic. 

And  you,  our  guest — fearless,  eloquent,  large  of  heart  and 
of  mind,  whose  one  thought  is  the  salvation  of  oppressed  Hun- 
gary, unfortunate  but  undiscouraged,  struck  down  in  the  bat- 
tle of  liberty,  but  great  in  defeat,  and  gathering  strength  for 
triumphs  to  come — receive  the  assurance  at  our  hands  that  in 
this  great  attempt  of  man  to  repossess  himself  of  the  rights 
which  God  gave  him,  though  the  strife  be  waged  under  a  dis- 
tant belt  of  longitude,  and  with  the  mightiest  despotisms  of 
the  world,  the  Press  of  America  will  take  part — will  take,  do  I 
say  ? — already  takes  part  with  you  and  your  countrymen. 

Enough  of  this.  I  will  detain  you  from  the  accents  to  which 
I  know  you  are  impatient  to  listen  only  just  long  enough  to 
pronounce  the  toast  of  the  evening:  Louis  KOSSUTH. 


OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS*' 


THE  last  exhibition  of  this  Society  was  held  in  what  was 
formerly  called  the  season  of  roses  and  strawberries,  the  earli- 
est and  most  delicious  fruit  of  the  year,  and  the  most  beautiful 
and  most  agreeably  fragrant  of  flowers.  Twenty-three  hun- 
dred years  ago — I  believe  it  was  nearer  twenty-four  hundred 
— the  Greek  poet  Anacreon  called  the  rose  the  Queen  of  Flow- 
ers. Since  his  time  the  botanist  and  the  florist  have  explored 
every  nook  of  the  globe,  wherever,  in  the  hottest  or  coldest 
climates,  the  green  blood  flows  in  vegetable  veins — wherever 
buds  swell  and  blossoms  open — and  have  brought  home,  to 
embellish  our  conservatories  and  gardens,  every  flower  dis- 
tinguished by  beauty  of  form  or  tint,  delicacy  of  texture  or 
grateful  perfume — flowers  worthy  of  Paradise,  to  use  a  phrase 
of  Milton — yet,  among  them  all,  the  rose  has  not  found  a  peer. 
She  has  never  been  dethroned,  and  is  still  the  sovereign  of  the 
flowers. 

In  Anacreon's  time  and  long  after,  down  to  the  time  when 
Moore,  the  translator  of  Anacreon,  composed  his  song,  entitled 
"  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer,"  there  was  an  especial  season  of 
roses.  One  flush  of  bloom  came  over  the  rose-trees,  and  then 
the  delicate  leaves  were  strewn  withered  on  the  ground  ;  the 
fruit  appeared  in  its  stead,  and  there  were  no  more  roses  for 

*  An  address  delivered  before  the  New  York  Horticultural  Society  at  the  exhibi- 
tion of  September  26,  1856. 


OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS.  195 

that  year ;  the  summer  must  pass  into  autumn,  the  autumn 
into  winter,  and  even  the  spring  must  approach  its  close  be- 
fore roses  were  again  gathered  in  our  gardens.  But  it  is  no 
longer  so,  as  your  tables  this  day  bear  witness.  See  what 
horticulture  has  done  ;  how  it  has  prolonged  the  gentle  reign 
of  this  Queen  of  Flowers  !  The  florist  comes,  he  takes  the  roses 
of  warmer  climates,  which  are  unaccustomed  to  our  seasons, 
he  crosses  them  with  the  hardier  growth  of  our  northern  gar- 
dens, and  obtains  plants  which  endure  our  winters  in  the  open 
air,  and  bloom  continually  from  the  beginning  of  June  to  the 
setting  in  of  the  winter  frosts.  There  is  now  no  last  rose  of 
summer — summer  goes  out  in  a  cloud  of  roses  ;  they  spring 
up  under  the  departing  footsteps  of  autumn.  Some  poet 
speaks  ironically  of  roses  in  December ;  what  he  meant  as  an 
extravagance  has  become  the  literal  truth.  I  have  gathered 
roses  in  my  garden  on  Long  Island  on  the  twentieth  of  De- 
cember ;  last  year  I  broke  them  from  their  stems  on  the  tenth. 
It  is  curious  to  see  the  plant  go  on  putting  forth  its  flowers 
and  rearing  its  clusters  of  buds  as  if  without  any  presentiment 
of  approaching  winter,  till,  in  the  midst  of  its  bloom,  it  is  sur- 
prised by  a  frost  nipping  all  its  young  and  tender  shoots  at 
once,  like  a  sudden  failure  overtaking  one  of  our  men  of  com- 
merce in  the  midst  of  his  many  projects. 

With  the  strawberry  the  horticulturist  has  wrought  nearly 
equal  wonders.  If  we  were  in  France  now,  your  tables  would 
show  that  there  is  a  second  season  of  strawberries.  There 
the  gardener  finds  means  to  delay  the  production  of  fruit  at 
the  usual  period.  When  the  summer  heats  are  overpast,  and 
a  temperature  like  that  of  June  returns,  he  encourages  the 
blossoms  to  open  and  the  fruit  to  mature,  and  in  September 
and  October  the  markets  of  Paris  are  fragrant  with  strawber- 
ries, an  abundant  and  cheap  dessert,  even  for  humble  tables. 

These,  my  friends,  are  the  triumphs  of  the  art  you  culti- 
vate, but  it  has  yet  to  achieve  peculiar  triumphs  in  our  own 
country.  Of  the  cultivated  vegetable  productions  which  we 
inherit  from  the  Old  World,  we  have  yet  to  produce  or  pro- 


196  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

cure  varieties  suited  to  our  soil  and  climate,  we  have  yet  to 
introduce  new  fruits  and  flowers  from  foreign  countries,  and 
we  have  yet  to  improve  and  draw  forth  into  new  and  desira- 
ble varieties  such  as  are  the  indigenous  growth  of  our  soil. 
On  each  of  these  points  I  shall  say  a  few  words,  though  not,  I 
hope,  so  many  as  to  weary  you. 

In  our  country  the  peach-tree  perishes  by  a  sort  of  maras- 
mus while  the  tree  is  yet  in  the  promise  of  its  growth.  Two 
or  three  years'  bearings  are  all  that  we  can  expect  from  it,  and 
it  then  becomes  sickly  and  dies  prematurely,  or  is  torn  from 
the  ground  as  worthless ;  and,  if  a  new  supply  is  desired,  other 
trees  must  be  planted  in  another  spot.  We  call  our  peaches 
the  best  in  the  world,  and  with  good  reason,  but  this  is  the 
fate  of  the  tree.  There  is  a  remedy,  if  we  could  but  discover 
it.  On  Long  Island  in  the  hedge-rows,  or  among  heaps  of 
stones,  in  neglected  spots  never  turned  by  the  spade  or  torn  by 
the  plough,  you  may  see  peach-trees,  self-planted,  which  flour- 
ish in  full  vigor,  with  leaves  of  the  darkest  and  glossiest  green, 
bearing  fruit  every  year,  and  surviving  generation  after  gen- 
eration of  their  brethren  of  the  gardens.  In  the  soil  and  situa- 
tion of  these  places  exist  the  qualities  which  are  necessary  to 
the  health  of  the  peach-tree.  What  are  they?  Can  the  prac- 
tical gardener  determine  ?  Can  the  chemist  ?  The  question  is 
worthy  of  long  and  most  careful  research. 

The  peach-tree  is  said  to  have  come  originally  from  Per- 
sia ;  the  botanists  recognize  that  country  as  its  birthplace,  and 
give  it  the  name  of  persica.  But  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
it  had  a  remoter  and  more  Eastern  origin,  since  in  China  it 
has  been  cultivated  from  time  immemorial.  From  China 
comes  the  flat  peach,  a  remarkable  production,  with  the  stone 
on  one  side  and  the  fleshy  part  of  the  peach  on  the  other. 
There  must  have  existed  a  long  and  intimate  familiarity  be- 
tween the  gardener  and  the  peach-tree  before  it  yielded  to  his 
whims,  and  gave  its  fruit  so  strange  a  shape  to  gratify  them. 
Are  there  no  healthy  and  enduring  varieties  of  the  peach  to 
be  procured  from  China  out  of  which  other  healthy  varieties 


OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS.  197 

may  be  bred  ?  Has  the  Chinese  horticulturist,  in  the  practice 
of  thousands  of  years,  discovered  no  method  of  preventing 
the  disease  by  which  the  tree  with  us  perishes  at  the  very 
period  when  it  should  be  most  vigorous  and  productive  ? 

The  apricot  in  our  country,  blooming  at  an  early  season, 
suffers  by  the  spring  frosts,  which  cause  its  fruit  to  drop  in 
the  germ,  and  often  render  the  tree  barren.  In  the  East,  its 
native  country,  it  is  cultivated  over  an  immense  variety  of  lati- 
tudes. Damascus  lies  among  orchards  of  the  apricot,  lofty 
trees  like  those  of  the  forest,  with  dark,  stately  stems  and 
spreading  branches ;  and  I  have  scarce  ever  seen  a  more  beau- 
tiful sight  than  the  banks  of  the  Barada,  a  river  of  Anti-Leba- 
non, in  its  green,  narrow  valley,  overhung,  in  the  month  of 
March,  with  apricot-trees  in  bloom,  vicing  in  height  with  the 
poplars  among  which  they  stood.  Yet,  far  to  the  north  of 
Damascus,  far  to  the  north  of  the  vale  of  Barada,  groves  of  this 
tree  clothe  the  cool  declivities  of  the  Caucasus ;  and  they  grow 
on  the  mountains  of  northern  China,  in  a  climate  of  fierce  and 
sudden  vicissitudes  of  heat  and  cold.  Our  varieties  of  the 
apricot  may  have  been  procured  from  too  southern  a  latitude  or 
from  a  climate  of  very  great  uniformity.  It  is  hardly  possible 
that  prolific  varieties,  suited  to  the  most  inconstant  climate, 
should  not  be  found  somewhere  in  Asia,  to  the  western  half  of 
which  the  fruit  of  the  apricot,  in  a  dried  state,  is  what  the 
prune  is  to  France  and  Germany. 

I  will  leave  this  point  here,  which  might  be  further  illus- 
trated by  numerous  examples,  particularly  by  the  cherry,  of 
which  many  of  the  varieties  most  prized  in  Europe  become 
worthless,  under  the  warm  and  showery  skies  of  our  June,  by 
decaying  the  instant  they  ripen ;  and  by  the  plum,  which  in 
some  districts,  where  the  tree  flourishes  with  uncommon 
vigor,  loses  all  its  fruit  by  the  stings  of  an  insect  pest  called 
the  circulio.  I  proceed  to  speak  of  the  vegetable  productions 
of  other  countries  which  we  might  advantageously  introduce 
into  our  own.  Eastern  Asia,  situated,  like  these  Atlantic 
States,  on  the  eastern  coast  of  a  large  continent,  and  possess- 


198  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

ing,  like  them,  a  climate  subject  to  great  extremes  of  heat  and 
cold,  is  the  region  to  which  we  must  look  for  the  most  impor- 
tant contributions  of  this  kind.  Whatever,  among  the  growths 
of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  will  bear  the  hard  winter  of  that 
region,  and  at  the  same  time  requires  the  heat  of  its  summer 
to  insure  its  perfection,  will,  of  course,  flourish  here  in  the 
same  latitudes  as  there.  Japan  and  northern  China  are  now 
opened  to  our  commerce,  and  we  may  freely  transfer  all  that 
is  worth  so  long  a  conveyance  to  our  fields  and  gardens.  The 
Dutch  and  English  florists  have  already  adopted  many  of  their 
flowering  plants :  the  camellia  of  southern  Japan  is  one  of  the 
fairest  ornaments  of  our  conservatories ;  Japan  lilies  and  China 
roses  bloom  in  our  gardens;  the  Japan  quince  and  Chinese 
pear  embellish  our  shrubberies ;  but  for  fruits  and  esculents, 
as  yet,  we  owe  them  little. 

Although  the  Chinese  make  no  wine,  they  have  excellent 
table  grapes;  the  French  missionary,  Hue,  commends  them 
highly ;  and  a  gentleman,  long  a  resident  in  southern  China, 
once  informed  me  that  the  finest  come  to  Canton  from  about 
the  3/th  degree  of  north  latitude.  It  is  a  variety  of  the  com- 
mon grape  of  the  Old  World  ;  but,  whatever  may  be  its  qual- 
ity, it  is  of  course  a  variety  certain  to  flourish  here  as  well  as 
in  the  kindred  climate  of  China.  The  European  vine — at  least 
the  varieties  of  it  which  are  cultivated  in  Europe — cannot,  it 
seems  to  be  agreed  on  all  hands,  be  naturalized  here  so  as  to 
escape  the  mildew  on  its  fruit,  when  it  grows  in  the  open  air. 
We  should  immediately  make  the  experiment  of  adopting 
the  Chinese  varieties  in  its  place.  The  lamps  by  which  the 
dwellings  and  streets  of  China  are  lighted  at  night  are  fed 
with  oil  pressed  from  the  fruit  of  a  tree  which  grows  all  over 
the  country.  The  chasers  of  the  whale  on  our  coast  every 
year  pursue  their  game  into  more  remote  seas,  and  every  year 
bring  back  diminished  cargoes  of  oil.  Ere  long  it  may  be 
well  to  bethink  ourselves  of  resorting  to  the  vegetable  oils 
used  by  the  Chinese,  and  of  procuring  a  supply  by  the  same 
means.  The  evergreens  of  China,  if  introduced  here,  where 


OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS. 


199 


the  stock  of  hardy  evergreens  is  small,  would  form  a  most 
desirable  ornament  of  the  grounds  about  our  dwellings. 
Among  these  is  a  kind  of  palm,  of  the  genus  chamcerops,  which 
endures  an  intense  degree  of  cold,  and  makes  a  singular  ap- 
pearance, bearing  on  its  tropical-looking  leaves,  in  the  winter 
season,  loads  of  snow.  Here  are  large  opportunities  for  in- 
quiry and  experiment,  and  one  office  of  societies  like  yours  in 
this  country  will,  I  am  convinced,  at  no  distant  day,  be  to  send 
a  horticultural  mission  to  eastern  Asia. 

The  last  topic  on  which  I  propose  to  touch  would  open,  if 
I  chose  to  expand  it,  a  vast  field  of  speculation  and  conjecture. 
If  we  had  only  our  native  fruits  to  cultivate ;  if  we  had  but 
the  crab-apple  of  our  forests  and  the  wild  plum  of  our  thickets 
from  which  to  form  our  orchards ;  if  we  had  only  the  aborigi- 
nal flowers  of  our  woods  and  fields  to  domesticate  in  our  gar- 
dens— what  haste  should  we  make  to  mellow  the  harsh  juices 
of  the  fruits  and  to  heighten  and  vary  the  beauty  of  the  flow- 
ers !  We  neglect  what  is  native,  because  we  have  the  vege- 
table productions  of  the  Old  World  already  improved  to  our 
hands.  Yet  many  of  these  were  as  little  promising,  when  the 
gardener  first  tried  his  art  upon  them,  as  the  crude  fruits  of 
our  woodlands.  The  pear-tree  in  the  woods  of  Poland  and  on 
the  dry,  elevated  plains  of  Russia,  where  it  grows  wild,  is 
horrid  with  thorns,  and  produces  a  small  fruit  of  the  austerest 
and  most  ungrateful  flavor.  Under  culture,  it  lays  aside  its 
thorns,  and  becomes  the  parent  of  an  infinitely  varied  family 
of  fruits,  filled  with  ambrosial  juices  for  the  refreshment  of 
almost  every  month  in  the  year.  I  have  somewhere  read  the 
assertion  that  the  grape  of  Europe  and  the  East  was,  even  in 
its  original  state,  a  fruit  of  excellent  quality.  I  think  this  is  a 
mistake.  I  believe  that  I  have  twice  seen  that  grape  lapsed 
to  its  primitive  condition.  Some  years  since,'  while  travelling 
from  Rome  to  Naples,  on  the  Via  Labiana,  the  diligence  broke 
down;  the  passengers  were  detained  several  hours  while  it 
was  repairing,  and  I  took  the  opportunity  to  explore  the  sur- 
rounding country.  I  climbed  a  hill  where,  on  one  side  of  the 


200  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

way,  was  a  vineyard,  with  grapes  white  and  purple,  just  ripe, 
and  almost  bursting  with  their  saccharine  juices ;  while  on  the 
other  side  was  an  unfenced  pasture-ground,  half  overgrown 
with  bushes,  on  which  the  wild  vines  clambered,  apparently 
self-sown.  I  tried  the  grapes  on  both  sides  of  the  way ;  the 
cultivated  sorts  were  of  the  high  flavor  and  intense  sweetness 
common  to  the  grapes  of  Italy  ;  the  fruit  of  the  wild  vine  was 
small,  of  the  size  of  our  pigeon-grape,  with  large  seeds,  a  thick 
skin,  and  meagre  juices.  In  the  same  journey  I  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  make  a  similar  comparison  in  another  place,  and  be- 
came convinced  that  the  European  grape,  in  its  wild  or  primi- 
tive state,  is  not  remarkable  for  any  particular  excellence. 

In  the  improvement  of  our  own  native  fruits  we  have  done 
something ;  the  Virginia  strawberry  is  the  parent  of  a  numer- 
ous family  called  the  Scarlets ;  the  blackberry  has  given  birth 
to  the  Lawton  variety ;  the  grape  of  our  woods  is  the  parent 
of  the  Isabella  and  the  Catawba ;  and  our  wild  gooseberry  has 
been  improved  into  the  Houghton.  Beyond  this  I  think  we 
have  hardly  gone.  Of  our  flowers,  we  can,  I  believe,  only 
boast  to  have  domesticated  and  made  double  the  Michigan 
rose.  There  is  yet  an  ample  field  for  experiment,  with  every 
hope  of  success.  The  American  grape  naturally  runs  into 
varieties  of  different  sizes,  colors,  degrees  of  sweetness,  and 
seasons  of  maturity.  The  richness  of  our  woods  in  regard  to 
these  varieties  is  yet  far  from  being  exhausted.  I  remember, 
when  a  youth,  while  wandering  in  the  woodlands  of  the  west- 
ern part  of  Massachusetts,  where  the  wild  vines  trailed  from 
tree  to  tree,  I  found  a  grape  of  very  peculiar  characteristics — 
of  an  amber  color,  an  oval  shape,  a  thin,  slightly  astringent 
skin  like  that  of  the  European  grape,  and  flesh  of  a  brittle 
firmness,  somewhat  like  that  of  the  Frontignan.  I  am  satisfied 
that  varieties  may  yet  be  obtained  from  the  American  grape 
of  an  excellence  of  which  we  have  now  hardly  any  idea.  The 
American  plum  exists  in  a  great  number  of  varieties  of  differ- 
ent size,  color,  and  flavor ;  yet  nothing  has  been  done  to  im- 
prove it,  by  seedlings  carefully  produced  and  selected.  I  see 


OUR  NATIVE  FRUITS  AND  FLOWERS,  2QI 

nothing  to  prevent  it  from  passing,  under  skilful  treatment, 
into  as  many  pleasant  varieties  as  the  domestic  plum,  for 
which,  as  naturalists  tell  us,  we  are  indebted  to  Syria.  At 
this  season  the  papaw,  sometimes  called  the  custard-apple, 
a  name  expressive  of  its  qualities,  is  ripening  under  its  dark- 
green  leaves  in  the  thickets  of  the  West.  It  is  a  fruit  which, 
like  the  fresh  fig,  is  pronounced,  by  many  whose  palates  are 
unaccustomed  to  it,  to  be  insipid ;  but,  like  the  fig,  it  is  muci- 
laginous and  nutritive.  Transplanted  to  our  gardens  and 
made  prolific — which  may,  perhaps,  be  a  difficult,  but,  I  sup- 
pose, not  an  impossible  task — it  would,  I  doubt  not,  become 
a  popular  and  very  desirable  fruit.  It  is  wonderful  with  what 
facility — what  certainty,  I  had  almost  said — Nature  complies 
with  the  wishes  of  the  assiduous  cultivator ;  and  how,  after 
persevering  solicitation,  she  supplies  the  quality  of  which  he 
is  in  search.  I  have  now  finished  what  I  intended,  very  briefly, 
to  say  on  a  very  important  subject,  which  deserves  to  be 
treated  both  more  at  large  and  more  intelligently  than  I  am 
able  to  do  it. 

The  earliest  occupation  of  man,  we  are  told — his  task  in  a 
state  of  innocence — was  to  tend  and  dress  the  garden  in  which 
his  Maker  placed  him.  I  cannot  say  that  as  men  addict  them- 
selves to  the  same  pursuit  they  are  raised  nearer  to  the  state 
of  innocence ;  but  this  I  will  say,  that  few  pursuits  so  agree- 
ably interest  without  ever  disturbing  the  mind,  and  that  he 
who  gives  himself  to  it  sets  up  one  barrier  more  against  evil 
thoughts  and  unhallowed  wishes.  The  love  of  plants  (is  a 
natural  and  wholesome  instinct.  Through  that,  perhaps,  quite 
as  much  as  through  any  other  tendency  of  our  natures,  the 
sense  of  beauty,  the  grateful  perception  of  harmony  of  color 
and  of  grace,  and  fair  proportion  of  shape,  enter  the  mind  and 
wean  it  from  grosser  and  more  sensual  tastes.  The  Quakers, 
who  hesitate  to  cultivate  some  of  the  fine  arts,  indulge  their 
love  of  beauty,  without  scruple  or  restraint,  in  rearing  flowers 
and  embellishing  their  grounds.  I  never  read  description  of 
natural  scenery,  nor  expressions  of  delight  at  the  beauty  of 


202  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

vegetable  products,  more  enthusiastic  than  those  in  the  travels 
of  old  Bartram,  the  Quaker  naturalist,  recording  his  wander- 
ings in  Florida.  The  garden  of  the  two  Bartrams,  father  and 
son,  near  Philadelphia,  filled  with  the  plants  and  trees  gathered 
on  their  journeys,  still  remains  the  pride  and  ornament  of  the 
city. 

You,  my  friends,  who  are  the  members  of  the  Horticul- 
tural Society,  are  engaged  in  a  good  work — the  work  of  cher- 
ishing the  relations  of  acquaintanceship  and  affection,  too  apt 
to  be  overlooked  and  forgotten  in  a  city  life,  with  the  vegeta- 
ble world  in  the  midst  of  which  God  placed  us,  and  on  which 
he  made  us  so  essentially  dependent.  So  far  as  you  occupy 
your  minds  with  these  natural  and  simple  tastes,  you  keep 
yourselves  unperverted  by  the  world,  and  preserve  in  sight  a 
reminiscence  of  the  fair  original  garden. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS/ 


MANY  persons  entertain  doubts  in  regard  to  the  expediency 
of  making  music  a  branch  of  the  education  acquired  in  our 
common  schools.  Until  these  doubts  are  removed,  we  shall 
miss  what  is  most  desirable — the  hearty  and  efficient  co-opera- 
tion of  those  who  entertain  them.  There  are  a  few  considera- 
tions in  favor  of  the  affirmative  side  of  this  question  which, 
I  think,  can  hardly  be  too  strongly  urged. 

It  is  admitted,  by  those  who  have  thought  much  on  the 
subject,  that  the  people  of  our  country  allow  themselves  too 
little  relaxation  from  business  and  its  cares.  If  this  be  so — 
and  for  my  part  I  think  there  is  no  doubt  of  it — they  will  find 
in  the  cultivation  of  music  a  recreation  of  the  most  innocent 
and  unobjectionable  kind.  The  effect  of  music  is  to  soothe,  to 
tranquillize  ;  a  series  of  sweet  sounds,  skilfully  modulated,  oc- 
cupies the  attention  agreeably  and  without  fatigue ;  it  re- 
freshes us  like  rest.  I  recollect  a  remarkable  passage  in,  Mil- 
ton's "  Paradise  Lost,"  expressive  of  his  idea  of  the  power  of 
music.  He  describes  a  group  of  fallen  angels  endeavoring  to 
divert  their  thoughts  from  the  misery  to  which  they  had  re- 
duced themselves,  and  says : 

"  — the  harmony 

Suspended  hell ;  and  took  with  ravishment 
The  audience." 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  close  of  a  series  of  lectures  by  Richard  Storrs  Willis, 
December  29,  1856. 
VOL.  II. — 14 


204 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


Milton  was  not  only  the  greatest  epic  poet  who  has  lived 
since  Homer,  but  he  was  a  school-master,  and  devised  for  his 
pupils  a  plan  of  education  in  which  the  fatigues  of  study  were 
wisely  interspersed  by  intervals  of  music. 

Many  persons  relax  from  labor  and  care  by  the  use  of  nar- 
cotics. Music  is  a  better  resource.  A  tune  is  certainly  better 
than  a  cigar.  Others,  for  want  of  some  more  attractive  em- 
ployment, addict  themselves  to  the  pleasures  of  the  table. 
Music  is  certainly  better  than  conviviality.  In  this  respect 
the  cultivation  of  music  comes  in  aid  of  health. 

In  another  respect  vocal  music — which  is  likely  to  be  the 
kind  of  music  principally  taught  in  the  common  schools — pro- 
motes the  health  of  the  body.  If  you  observe  the  physical 
conformation  of  those  who  are  accustomed  to  sing  in  public, 
you  will  perceive  that  they  are  remarkable  for  a  full  develop- 
ment of  the  chest.  This  is  in  part,  no  doubt,  the  gift  of  na- 
ture, for  breadth  and  depth  of  the  chest  give  power  and  ful- 
ness of  voice ;  but  in  part  it  is  the  effect  of  practice,  and  the 
chest  is  opened  and  expanded  by  the  exercise  of  singing.  I 
have  no  question,  for  my  part,  that  complaints  of  the  lungs 
would  be  less  frequent  than  now  if  vocal  music  were  univer- 
sally cultivated.  It  is  an  undisputed  truth  that  those  organs 
of  the  body  which  are  most  habitually  exercised  are  preserved 
in  the  soundest  and  healthiest  state. 

Not  only  health,  but  morals,  are  promoted  by  the  cultiva- 
tion of  music.  It  is  a  safeguard  not  only  against  sickly  and 
unwholesome  habits,  as  I  have  shown,  but  against  immoral 
ones  also.  If  we  provide  innocent  amusements,  we  lessen  the 
temptation  to  seek  out  vicious  indulgences.  Refined  pleas- 
ures, like  music,  stand  in  the  way  of  grosser  tastes.  If  we 
fill  up  our  leisure  innocently,  we  crowd  out  vices,  almost  by 
mechanical  pressure ;  we  leave  no  room  for  them. 

It  is  no  trivial  accomplishment  to  speak  our  language  in 
pleasing  tones  and  with  a  clear  articulation.  Our  countrymen 
are  accused  of  speaking  English  in  a  slip-shod  manner,  and  a 
nasal  and  rather  shrill  tone  of  voice.  If  vocal  music  be  prop- 


MUSIC  IN  SCHOOLS.  205 

erly  taught,  the  pupil  is  made  to  avoid  these  faults,  and  to  com- 
bine the  smoothest  and  most  agreeable  sounds  with  the  most 
absolutely  distinct  articulation  of  the  words.  On  this  point 
the  gentleman  to  whom  we  have  just  listened  has  dwelt  with 
a  force  to  which  I  can  add  nothing.  Yet  I  may  be  allowed  to 
say  that  they  who  have  been  trained  to  avoid  disagreeable 
tones  and  an  imperfect  and  slovenly  articulation  in  singing, 
will  see  their  deformity  in  reading  and  conversation,  and  will 
be  very  apt  to  avoid  them  there  also. 

In  making  music  a  branch  of  common  education,  we  give 
a  new  attraction  to  our  common  schools.  Music  is  not  merely 
a  study,  it  is  an  entertainment ;  wherever  there  is  music 
there  is  a  throng  of  listeners.  We  complain  that  our  common 
schools  are  not  attended  as  they  ought  to  be.  What  is  to  be 
done  ?  Shall  we  compel  the  attendance  of  children  ?  Rather 
let  us,  if  we  can,  so  order  things  that  children  shall  attend 
voluntarily — shall  be  eager  to  crowd  to  the  schools  ;  and  for 
this  purpose  nothing  can  be  more  effectual,  it  seems  to  me, 
than  the  art  to  which  the  ancients  ascribed  such  power  that, 
according  to  the  fables  of  their  poets,  it  drew  the  very  stones 
of  the  earth  from  their  beds  and  piled  them  in  a  wall  around 
the  city  of  Thebes. 

It  should  be  considered,  moreover,  that  music  in  schools  is 
useful  as  an  incentive  to  study.  After  a  weary  hour  of  poring 
over  books,  with  perhaps  some  discouragement  on  the  part  of 
the  learner,  if  not  despair  at  the  hardness  of  his  task,  a  song 
puts  him  in  a  more  cheerful  and  hopeful  mood  ;  the  play  of 
the  lungs  freshens  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  he  sits 
down  again  to  his  task  in  better  spirits  and  with  an  invigora- 
ted mind.  Almost  all  occupations  are  cheered  and  lightened 
by  music.  I  remember  once  being  in  a  tobacco  manufactory 
in  Virginia  where  the  work  was  performed  by  slaves  who  en- 
livened their  tasks  with  outbursts  of  psalmody.  "  We  encour- 
age their  singing,"  said  one  of  the  proprietors  ;  "  they  work 
the  better  for  it."  Sailors  pull  more  vigorously  at  the  rope  for 
their  "  Yo  heave  ho ! "  which  is  a  kind  of  song.  I  have  heard 


206  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  vine-dressers  in  Tuscany,  on  the  hill-sides,  responding  to 
each  other  in  songs,  with  which  the  whole  region  resounded, 
and  which  turned  their  hard  day's  work  into  a  pastime. 

If  music  be  so  important  an  art,  it  is  important  that  it 
should  be  well  taught.  It  is  a  sensible  maxim  that  whatever 
is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing  well.  Suitable  teachers 
of  music  for  the  common  schools,  as  we  have  heard  from  our 
friend,  are  exceedingly  difficult  to  be  found ;  persons  who,  along 
with  a  competent  knowledge,  a  willingness,  to  teach  the  mere 
rudiments  of  the  art,  and  an  acquaintance  with  the  best  meth- 
ods of  imparting  them,  possess  a  pure  and  unexceptionable  taste. 
The  only  certain  method  of  procuring  a  supply  of  such  teach- 
ers certainly  seems  to  be  the  one  pointed  out  by  the  lecturer 
— that  of  training  them  for  instruction  at  the  normal  schools. 
Such  is  now  the  rage  for  making  accomplished  pianists  of  all 
our  young  ladies  that  a  class  of  teachers  has  been  raised  up 
whose  merit  I  do  not  doubt,  but  who  are  altogether  too  ambi- 
tious for  the  common  schools.  We  need  a  class  for  a  humble 
but  more  useful  ministration — teachers  of  home  music,  the 
importance  of  which  has  been  so  well  set  forth.  It  costs  no 
more  to  be  taught  music  well  than  to  be  taught  it  ill,  but  the 
difference  to  the  pupil  is  everything. 

I  speak  as  one  unlearned  in  the  science  of  music,  and  am 
glad  that  I  have  the  good  fortune  to  agree  in  so  many  points 
with  one  so  thoroughly  versed  in  its  principles  and  so  conver- 
sant with  its  practical  details  as  our  lecturer.  There  is  a  nu- 
merous class — the  majority  of  my  countrymen — who  in  this 
respect  are  much  like  myself.  They  have  a  perception  of  the 
beauty  of  sweet  sounds  artfully  modulated,  and  of  time  in 
music ;  they  perceive  the  disagreeableness  of  a  discord,  but 
they  do  not  understand  complicated  harmonies ;  they  do  not 
perceive  niceties  to  which  better  instructed  or  more  sensitive 
organs  are  acutely  alive ;  they  take  no  delight  in  difficulties 
overcome,  for  of  these  difficulties  they  have  a  very  imperfect 
conception,  and  they  are  somewhat  bewildered  in  listening  to 
compositions  which  justly  pass  for  prodigies  of  art.  They 


MUSIC  IN  SCHOOLS. 


207 


have  a  partiality  for  the  human  voice,  as  the  most  expressive 
instrument  of  music  which  they  are  acquainted  with,  and  they 
desire  that  the  sentiment  of  the  air  to  which  they  listen  should 
be  interpreted  to  their  minds  by  intelligible  words.  But  that 
it  is  not  the  words  alone  which  interest  them  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  they  listen  with  pleasure  to  commonplace  words 
when  they  are  united  to  music.  For  my  part,  I  find  that  the 
music  transfigures  the  words,  invests  them  with  a  sort  of  su- 
pernatural splendor,  making  them  call  up  deeper  emotions  and 
conveying  more  vivid  images.  The  class  of  whom  I  am  speak- 
ing require  for  their  enjoyment  of  music  a  certain  simplicity — 
certain  aids  which  bring  it  down  to  their  level.  And  yet, 
on  that  level,  not  only  taste,  but  art  and  genius — if  we  are  to 
judge  music  by  the  same  rules  which  we  apply  to  the  other 
fine  arts — may  find  an  ample  field  for  their  exercise.  Some  of 
the  finest  productions  of  literature  are  those  which  are  writ- 
ten with  the  greatest  simplicity,  and  address  themselves  to  the 
greatest  number  of  minds.  I  suppose,  therefore,  that  I  may 
conclude  what  I  have  to  say  with  an  acknowledgment  to  the 
lecturer,  in  behalf  of  that  large  class  to  which  I  belong,  for 
having  so  well  stated  our  wants,  and  so  clearly  pointed  out,  in 
his  admirable  vindication  of  home  music,  the  means  of  provid- 
ing for  them. 


THE  NEWSPAPER  PRESS.* 


NEW  ENGLAND  was  the  parent  of  the  American  press,  and 
at  a  time  like  this,  when  the  sons  of  New  England  take 
account  of  her  institutions  and  sum  up  what  she  has  done 
for  the  continent  on  which  we  dwell,  the  press  may  be  fitly 
remembered.  It  is  now  more  than  a  century  and  a  half — 
it  is  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  years  and  some  months — 
since  Bartholomew  Green,  a  native  of  Cambridge,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  the  son  of  Samuel  Green,  the  first  printer  of 
New  England,  issued  the  first  American  newspaper — a  little 
sheet  entitled  the  "  Boston  News-Letter."  If  that  patriarch 
of  the  American  press  were  now  permitted  to  observe  what  is 
passing  in  the  country  which  he  inhabited  in  life,  what  vast 
consequences  would  he  see  as  the  fruits  of  that  small  begin- 
ning !  what  a  mighty  array  of  his  successors  would  pass  under 
his  eye ! — conductors  of  the  press  by  myriads,  some  of  whom 
are  throwing  off  their  blanket-sheets  by  thousands  on  the  spot 
where  his  journal,  scarcely  exceeding  a  hand-breadth  in  di- 
mensions, printed  its  hundreds. 

Of  this  Mr.  Green  we  are  told  that  he  was  a  deacon — a 
deacon  of  the  Old  South  Church,  of  Boston;  that  he  was 

*  Mr.  Bryant,  because  of  his  prominence  as  a  journalist,  was  frequently  called 
upon  to  respond  to  toasts  to  the  press  ;  and  from  his  many  remarks  on  the  subject 
a  few  are  here  reproduced. 


THE  NEWSPAPER  PRESS.  209 

"  known  and  esteemed  as  a  humble  and  exemplary  Christian 
— one  who  had  much  of  that  primitive  Christianity  in  him 
which  has  always  been  the  glory  of  New  England."  Such 
were  the  words  in  which  his  character  was  spoken  of  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  in  1733.  It  was  added  that  he  was  of  "a 
meek  and  peaceable  spirit,"  cautious  "  not  to  preach  anything 
offensive,  light,  or  hurtful."  A  deacon  the  father  of  American 
journalism — and  such  a  deacon !  Among  those  who  are  not 
already  acquainted  with  these  facts  there  are  few,  I  suppose, 
who  would  have  suspected  the  American  press  of  quite  so 
saintly  an  origin.  And  yet,  when  we  consider  the  extreme 
meekness  of  the  conductors  of  our  press  at  the  present  day, 
their  utter  unwillingness  to  return  railing  for  railing,  and  their 
resolute  habit  of  rendering  good  for  evil  [applause]  ;  when  we 
consider  their  earnest,  passionate  love  of  peace,  and  their  sen- 
sitive aversion  to  mischief,  we  shall  be  almost  tempted  to 
believe  that  the  entire  race  of  them  keep  the  example  of  the 
worthy  Deacon  Green  constantly  before  their  minds,  and 
strive  with  all  their  might  to  imitate  that  venerable  father  of 
the  American  press.  [Great  laughter  and  applause.]  I  hope 
to  be  pardoned  for  paying  the  newspaper  press  this  compli- 
ment, since,  if  it  were  not  done  by  one  of  the  profession,  I  fear 
it  might  not  be  done  at  all. 

It  was  at  a  little  later  period  that  New  England  gave  the 
world  the  greatest  printer  that  the  world  ever  saw — the  man 
who,  with  the  same  hand  that  set  up  the  types  for  "  Poor 
Richard's  Almanac,"  drew  the  lightning  from  the  clouds,  and 
assisted  in  penning  the  articles  of  the  noble  Constitution  under 
which  we  live. 

But  the  press  is  nothing  without  readers — without  readers 
it  cannot  come  into  existence ;  without  readers  it  is  at  once  an- 
nihilated. It  is  only  to  the  intelligent  and  instructed  eye  that 
the  press  has  a  voice  ;  withdraw  that,  and  the  press  is  dumb 
forever ;  the  grave,  with  all  its  silence,  is  more  eloquent.  And 
to  what  or  to  whom  does  the  press  owe  its  readers  ?  To  New 
England  more  than  to  any  other  part  of  the  country.  Wher- 


210  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

ever  you  find  New  Englanders  and  their  descendants  you  find 
readers  ;  wherever  the  New  Englander  goes  he  takes  the  news- 
paper with  him  or  it  follows  him.  School-masters,  tutors, 
professors,  teachers  of  every  class,  go  forth  from  New  England 
and  raise  up  multitudes  of  readers.  In  their  case  the  old  myth- 
ological fable  of  him  who  sowed  dragons'  teeth  in  the  fur- 
rows of  the  earth  and  there  sprung  up  ranks  of  armed  men,  has 
its  counterpart.  The  school-master  scatters  abroad  the  seeds 
of  knowledge,  and  there  springs  up  a  mighty  host  of  friends  and 
supporters  of  the  press.  In  one  of  the  agricultural  poems  of 
Virgil  he  describes  the  husbandman  directing  the  waters  of  a 
stream  from  its  ancient  channel  along  a  parched  hill-side,  trac- 
ing a  path  in  which  they  follow  him,  spreading  verdure  and 
fertility.  It  is  thus  that  the  school-master,  wherever  he  goes, 
marks  out  new  channels  for  the  abundant  and  fertilizing  streams 
of  the  press,  which  flow  where  he  has  passed,  diffusing  knowl- 
edge and  intelligence.  If  I  should  close  what  I  have  to  say 
by  a  toast,  I  would  give  you  "  The  Pioneer  and  Benefactor  of 
the  American  Press,  the  New  England  School-master."  * 

I  THANK  this  company,  in  the  name  of  the  journalists,  for 
the  compliment  just  paid  to  their  profession.  I  do  not  intend 
now  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  on  journalism.  I  can  do  that  in 
my  own  journal  at  any  time,  but  I  wish  to  say  a  word  or  two 
by  way  of  illustrating  the  convenience  of  a  daily  journal  to 
some  who  are  not  journalists.  You,  Mr.  President,  and  other 
gentlemen  who  have  been  heard  and  applauded  this  evening, 
have  apparently  spoken  to  a  small  company  of  guests  in  this 
dining-room.  It  is  not  so.  Through  the  journals  you  have 
been  speaking  to  thousands,  perhaps  to  millions,  and  in  a  few 
hours  those  applauses  will  have  been  echoed  over  all  the  coun- 
try. The  busy  agents  of  the  press  have  taken  down  the  utter- 
ances of  your  lips ;  while  you  are  asleep  the  record  will  be  on 

*  From  a  speech  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the  New  England  Society  of  New  York, 
December  22,  1858. 


THE  NEWSPAPER  PRESS.  211 

its  way  in  a  thousand  different  directions,  and  with  early  light 
will  be  laid  at  thousands  of  doors. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  time  when  there  was  no  printing- 
press  and,  of  course,  no  journals.  When  Cicero,  in  ancient 
Rome,  launched  his  fiery  invectives  against  Catiline,  and  de- 
livered his  grand  defence  of  the  poet  Archius,  small  indeed 
must  have  been  the  circle  of  those  who  had  any  conception  of 
his  eloquence.  But  let  us  suppose  thatHby  some  inscrutable 
means,  a  communication  could  have  been  established  between 
the  world  of  that  day  and  the  world  of  modern  times,  and  that 
an  accomplished  reporter  of  our  daily  press  and  one  of  Hoe's 
steam  printing-presses  could  have  been  quietly  smuggled  into 
the  Rome  of  Cicero's  time.  We  will  suppose  the  stenogra- 
pher silently  to  take  down  in  his  manuscript  those  noble  ex- 
amples of  ancient  eloquence  as  they  were  uttered ;  we  will 
suppose  the  steam  press  to  perform  its  office ;  we  will  sup- 
pose the  reporter  early  next  morning  to  visit  the  orator  with 
copies  of  his  oration.  He  might  say  to  him :  "  Mr.  Cicero  " — 
for  your  genuine  journalist  is  ever  courteous — "  Mr.  Cicero, 
here  is  your  yesterday's  speech.  You  suppose  that  the  manu- 
script in  one  of  the  pockets  of  your  toga  is  the  only  copy  of  it 
in  existence,  but  here  you  see  are  several  others.  Here  are 
your  exordium,  your  arguments,  your  illustrations,  your  per- 
oration ;  and  not  only  those,  but  here  are  all  your  figures  of 
speech,  your  exclamations,  your  rounded  sentences,  your  well- 
chosen  words,  every  one  as  they  fell  from  your  eloquent  lips, 
with  notes  of  the  applauses  of  the  audience  in  their  proper 
places.  The  boys  are  already  hawking  it  in  the  streets ;  men 
are  reading  it  in  the  wine-shops ;  the  patricians  are  conning  it 
at  their  breakfast-tables ;  groups  of  plebeians  are  assembled  in 
the  forum,  where  one  reads  it  aloud  for  the  benefit  of  the  rest. 
To-morrow  they  will  have  it  at  Parthenope  and  Baias,  and  in 
the  northern  cities  of  Italy,  and  it  will  soon  be  read  in  our  colo- 
nies in  Gaul,  in  Spain,  and  in  Africa.  Read  it  for  yourself  !  " 
What  would  Cicero  have  said  to  such  a  phenomenon,  or, 
rather,  what  would  he  have  thought,  for  we  may  suppose 


212  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

amazement  to  take  away  the  power  of  speech  ?  What  could 
he  have  thought  save  that  here  was  the  interposition  of  some 
divinity — Apollo  or  Minerva — working  a  miracle  to  astonish 
mankind,  and  confound  those  who  disbelieved  in  the  gods  ? 

But  the  press,  important  as  is  its  office,  is  but  the  servant 
7  of  the  human  intellect,  and  its  ministry  is  for  good  or  for  evil, 
according  to  the  character  of  those  who  direct  it.  The  press  is 
a  mill  which  grinds  all  that  is  put  into  its  hopper.  Fill  the  hop- 
per with  poisoned  grain  and  it  will  grind  it  to  meal,  but  there 
is  death  in  the  bread.  How  shall  we  be  sure  to  feed  these  mas- 
sive and  ever-humming  mill-stones  with  only  the  product  of 
wholesome  harvests,  the  purest  and  finest  wheat,  unmingled 
with  the  seeds  of  any  noxious  weed?  We  must  claim  the 
aid  of  institutions  of  education,  like  that  whose  glories  we  this 
evening  celebrate,  to  diffuse  among  the  community — both  those 
who  write  for  the  press  and  those  who  read — the  exact  knowl- 
edge, the  habits  of  careful  thought,  the  high  aims,  the  gener- 
ous motives,  the  principles  of  justice  and  benevolence,  which 
alone  can  give  dignity  and  usefulness  to  the  newspaper  press, 
and  make  it  a  benefit  and  blessing  to  the  world.  So  you  per- 
ceive that,  although  I  begin  with  journalism,  I  end,  as  befits 
the  theme  and  the  occasion,  with  Harvard.* 

I  AM  aware,  fully  aware,  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  press, 
to  call  them  by  a  mild  name.  Among  journalists  there  is  the 
same  variety  of  character  as  among  men  of  other  vocations. 
There  are  men  of  sturdy  and  resolute  honesty,  and  there  are 
others  who  are  simply  rogues.  There  are  enlightened  men 
among  them,  and  there  are  men  who  are  deplorably  ignorant. 
There  are  men  of  wavering  and  unsettled  opinions  on  the  one 
hand,  and  men  of  impracticable  and  pigheaded  obstinacy  on 
the  other.  There  are  men  of  brilliant  literary  talents,  and 
others  whom,  for  want  of  a  more  polite  designation,  I  should 
call  stupid ;  there  are  fearless  men,  and  men  easily  frightened. 

*  From  remarks  at  a  meeting  of  the  New  York  Harvard  Club,  February  22,  1871. 


THE  NEWSPAPER  PRESS. 


213 


When  they  speak  to  the  public,  they  speak  in  character ;  the 
journals  which  they  conduct  partake  in  a  great  degree  of  the 
mental  and  moral  qualities  of  their  conductors.  But,  on  the 
whole,  I  boldly  maintain  that,  as  a  class,  the  journalists  of  this 
country  are  wiser  and  more  virtuous  than  our  legislators.  It 
was  the  press  which  ably  and  persistently  exposed  the  villa- 
nies  of  the  set  of  men  called  the  city  ring — authors  of  a  series  • 
of  the  most  enormous  frauds  known  to  history — an  exposure 
nobly  and  effectually  followed  up  by  Mr.  Tilden,  now  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State.  When  a  set  of  spies  and  informers  had 
organized  a  system  of  extortion,  of  which  our  merchants  were 
the  victims,  called  the  moiety  system,  the  effect  of  which  was 
to  deliver  over  to  these  robbers  our  most  honorable  merchants, 
to  be  pillaged  without  mercy  or  remorse,  it  was  the  press  that 
interfered,  and,  by  dint  of  loud  and  incessant  remonstrance, 
forced  Congress  to  repeal  the  odious  laws  which  gave  these 
men  the  power  to  plunder.  It  is  the  journals  which  at  this 
moment  sustain  Governor  Tilden  in  his  endeavors  to  strip  the 
cheating  canal  contractors  of  their  disguises  and  make  them 
disgorge  their  spoil.  If  the  Legislature  of  this  State  fails  to 
screen  the  delinquents,  it  is  because  of  the  unanimity  with 
which  the  press  sustains  the  Governor's  policy  of  a  remorse- 
less investigation  and  a  rigid  exaction  of  responsibility.  Look- 
ing at  these  facts,  who  would  not  feel  a  certain  satisfaction  at 
belonging  to  a  class  so  useful  ? 

But  I  must  make  some  abatement  from  this  commendation. 
I  must  say  how  much  greater  would  be  the  service  which  the 
press  would  render  the  country  if  it  would  only  interfere  with 
the  same  energy  in  the  case  of  our  revenue  laws  and  our 
finances.  Under  the  bad  system  which  we  have  adopted,  our 
merchant-flag  is  banished  from  the  main  ocean;  in  distant 
ports,  where  our  stars  and  stripes  were  once  a  familiar  sight, 
they  are  seen  no  more ;  our  industry  in  a  thousand  branches  is 
smitten  with  lethargy,  and  swoons  and  dies  in  villages  where 
lately  it  was  in  healthful  activity ;  our  circulating  medium  is 
debased,  and  the  world  points  at  us  in  scorn  as  at  a  nation  of 


214  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

immense  resources,  a  growing  population,  and  the  richest  gold 
mines  in  the  world,  yet  refusing  to  perform  its  promise  to  pay 
its  bills  of  credit.  If  the  press  of  our  country  had  the  neces- 
sary intelligence,  zeal,  and  courage,  it  might  force  Congress  to 
reform  the  disgraceful  state  of  things,  repair  our  disordered 
finances,  and  restore  our  destroyed  commerce. 

I  acknowledge  the  remissness  of  our  journalists  in  this 
respect,  but  I  am  comforted  by  the  hope  that  it  will  not  be 
always  so.  Truth  will  prevail  in  its  own  good  time,  and  right 
will  triumph  at  last.  Meantime,  I  would  not  advise  any  of 
those  who  hear  me  to  drop  an  honestly  and  healthily  con- 
ducted journal  because  of  disagreeing  with  it  on  some  single 
question,  though  it  seems  to  them  important.  For,  depend 
upon  it,  the  time  will  arrive  when,  some  other  measure  or 
doctrine  coming  up,  you  and  the  discarded  journal,  if  it  be  of 
the  character  I  have  supposed,  will  be  found  side  by  side  con- 
tending for  the  same  great  principle.  Rather  let  me  counsel 
you  to  deal  with  it  after  the  manner  suggested  by  Henry  Clay 
when  apologizing  to  an  assembly  of  his  constituents  for  sup- 
porting some  unpopular  measure.  Clay  knew  how  to  speak 
to  the  hunters  of  Kentucky.  "What,"  asked  the  orator, 
"  would  you  do  if  your  faithful  and  familiar  rifle,  which  you 
had  carried  for  years,  and  which  always  brought  down  the 
game  it  was  aimed  at,  had  for  once  missed  fire  ?  Would  you 
throw  it  aside  in  anger,  to  be  used  no  more  ?  What  would 
you  do?"  "What?"  answered  a  voice  from  the  crowd, 
"  what  would  we  do  ?  Why,  pick  the  flint  and  try  it  again."  * 

*  From  remarks  at  a  dinner  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce,  1873. 


FREDERICK  SCHILLER.* 


IT  might  seem  a  presumptuous,  if  not  an  absurd,  proceed- 
ing for  an  American  to  speak  of  the  literary  character  of  Schil- 
ler in  the  presence  of  Germans,  who  are  familiar  with  all  that 
he  has  written  to  a  degree  which  cannot  be  expected  of  us, 
and  by  whom  the  spirit  of  his  writings,  to  the  minutest  par- 
ticular, must  be  far  more  easily,  and,  we  may  therefore  sup- 
pose, should  be  more  thoroughly  apprehended.  Yet  let  me 
be  allowed  to  say  that  the  name  of  Schiller,  more  than  that  of 
any  other  poet  of  his  country,  and  for  the  very  reason  that  he 
was  a  great  tragic  poet,  belongs  not  to  the  literature  of  his 
country  alone,  but  to  the  literature  of  the  world.  The  Ger- 
mans themselves  have  taught  us  this  truth  in  relation  to  the 
tragic  poets.  In  no  part  of  the  world  is  our  Shakespeare 
more  devoutly  studied  than  in  Germany ;  nowhere  are  his 
writings  made  the  subject  of  profounder  criticism,  and  the 
German  versions  of  his  dramas  are  absolute  marvels  of  skilful 
translation. 

We  may  therefore  well  say  to  the  countrymen  of  Schiller: 
"  Schiller  is  yours,  but  he  is  ours  also.  It  was  your  country 
that  gave  him  birth,  but  the  people  of  all  nations  have  made 
him  their  countryman  by  adoption.  The  influences  of  his 
genius  have  long  since  overflowed  the  limits  within  which  his 

*  From  an  address  delivered  at  the  Cooper  Institute  on  the  occasion  of  the  Schiller 
Festival,  November  II,  1859. 


2i6  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

mother  tongue  is  spoken,  and  have  colored  the  dramatic  litera- 
ture of  the  whole  world.  In  some  shape  or  other,  with  abate- 
ments, doubtless,  from  their  original  splendor  and  beauty,  but 
still  glorious  and  still  powerful  over  the  minds  of  men,  his 
dramas  have  become  the  common  property  of  mankind.  His 
personages  walk  our  stage,  and,  in  the  familiar  speech  of 
our  firesides,  utter  the  sentiments  which  he  puts  into  their 
mouths.  We  tremble  alternately  with  fear  and  hope  ;  we  are 
moved  to  tears  of  admiration,  we  are  melted  to  tears  of  pity  ; 
it  is  Schiller  who  touches  the  master  chord  to  which  our  hearts 
answer.  He  compels  us  to  a  painful  sympathy  with  his  Rob- 
ber Chief ;  he  makes  us  parties  to  the  grand  conspiracy  of 
Fiesco,  and  willing  lieges  of  Fiesco's  gentle  consort  Leonora ; 
we  sorrow  with  him  for  the  young,  magnanimous,  generous, 
unfortunate  Don  Carlos,  and  grieve  scarcely  less  for  the  guile- 
less and  angelic  Elizabeth ;  he  dazzles  us  with  the  splendid 
ambition  and  awes  us  with  the  majestic  fall  of  Wallenstein ; 
he  forces  us  to  weep  for  Mary  Stuart  and  for  the  Maid  of  Or- 
leans ;  he  thrills  us  with  wonder  and  delight  at  the  glorious 
and  successful  revolt  of  William  Tell.  Suffer  us,  then,  to  take 
part  in  the  honors  'you  pay  to  his  memory,  to  shower  the  vio- 
lets of  spring  upon  his  sepulchre,  and  twine  it  with  the  leaves 
of  plants  that  wither  not  in  the  frost  of  winter." 

We  of  this  country,  too,  must  honor  Schiller  as  the  poet  of 
freedom.  He  was  one  of  those  who  could  agree  with  Cow- 
per  in  saying  that,  if  he  could  worship  aught  visible  to  the 
human  eye  or  shaped  by  the  human  fancy,  he  would  rear  an 
altar  to  Liberty,  and  bring  to  it,  at  the  beginning  and  close  of 
every  day,  his  offering  of  praise.  Schiller  began  to  write 
when  our  country  was  warring  with  Great  Britain  for  its 
independence,  and  his  genius  attained  the  maturity  of  its 
strength  just  as  we  had  made  peace  with  our  powerful  adver- 
sary and  stood  upon  the  earth  a  full-grown  nation.  It  was 
then  that  the  poet  was  composing  his  noble  drama  of  "  Don 
Carlos,"  in  which  the  Marquis  of  Posa  is  introduced  as  laying 
down  to  the  tyrant,  Philip  of  Spain,  the  great  law  of  freedom. 


FREDERICK  SCHILLER.  2I/ 

In  the  drama  of  the  "  Robbers,"  written  in  Schiller's  youth,  we 
are  sensible  of  a  fiery,  vehement,  destructive  impatience  with 
society,  on  account  of  the  abuses  which  it  permits ;  an  enthu- 
siasm of  reform,  almost  without  plan  or  object ;  but  in  his 
works  composed  afterward  we  find  the  true  philosophy  of 
reform  calmly  and  clearly  stated.  The  Marquis  of  Posa,  in  an 
interview  with  Philip,  tells  him,  at  the  peril  of  his  life,  truths 
which  he  never  heard  before  ;  exhorts  him  to  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  his  power  in  the  happiness  and  affections  of  his  people, 
by  observing  the  democratic  precept  that  no  tie  should  fetter 
the  citizen  save  respect  for  the  rights  of  his  brethren,  as  per- 
fect and  as  sacred  as  his  own,  and  prophesies  the  approaching 
advent  of  freedom,  which,  unfortunately,  we  are  looking  for 
still — that  universal  spring  which  should  yet  make  young  the 
nations  of  the  earth. 

Yet  was  Schiller  no  mad  innovator.  He  saw  that  society 
required  to  be  pruned,  but  did  not  desire  that  it  should  be  up- 
rooted— he  would  have  it  reformed,  not  laid  waste.  What  was 
ancient  and  characteristic  in  its  usages  and  ordinances,  and 
therefore  endeared  to  many,  he  would,  where  it  was  possible, 
improve  and  adapt  to  the  present  wants  of  mankind.  I  re- 
member a  passage  in  which  his  respect  for  those  devices  of 
form  and  usage,  by  which  the  men  of  a  past  age  sought  to  curb 
and  restrain  the  arbitrary  power  of  their  rulers,  is  beautifully 
illustrated.  I  quote  it  from  the  magnificent  translation  of 
"  Wallenstein"  made  by  Coleridge.  Let  me  say  here  that  I  know 
of  no  English  translation  of  a  poem  of  any  length  which,  a  few 
passages  excepted,  so  perfectly  reproduces  the  original  as  this, 
and  that,  if  the  same  hand  had  given  us  in  our  language  the 
other  dramas  of  this  author,  we  should  have  had  an  English 
Schiller,  worthy  to  be  placed  by  the  side  of  the  German. 
"  My  son,"  says  Octavio  Piccolomini,  addressing  the  youthful 
warrior  Max, 

"  My  son,  of  those  old  narrow  ordinances 
Let  us  not  hold  too  lightly.     They  are  weights 
Of  priceless  value,  which  oppressed  mankind 


2i8  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES, 

Tied  to  the  volatile  will  of  the  oppressor. 

For  always  formidable  was  the  league 

And  partnership  of  free  power  with  free  will." 

And  then,  remarking  that  what  slays  and  destroys  goes 
directly  to  its  mark,  like  the  thunderbolt  and  the  cannon-ball, 
shattering  everything  that  lies  in  their  way,  he  claims  a  benefi- 
cent circuitousness  for  those  ancient  ordinances  which  make 
so  much  of  the  machinery  of  society. 

"  My  son,  the  road  the  human  being  travels, 
That  on  which  Blessing  comes  and  goes,  doth  follow 
The  river's  path,  the  valley's  playful  windings, 
Curves  round  the  cornfield  and  the  hill  of  vines, 
Honoring  the  holy  bounds  of  property, 
And  thus,  secure,  though  late,  leads  to  its  end." 

Schiller  perceived  the  great  truth  that  old  laws,  if  not 
watched,  slide  readily  into  abuses,  and  knew  that  constant  re- 
vision and  renovation  are  the  necessary  conditions  of  free  po- 
litical society  ;  but  he  would  have  the  revision  made  without 
forgetting  that  the  men  of  the  present  day  are  of  the  same 
blood  with  those  who  lived  before  them.  He  would  have  the 
new  garments  fitted  to  the  figure  that  must  wear  them,  such 
as  nature  and  circumstances  have  made  it,  even  to  its  dispro- 
portions. He  would  have  the  old  pass  into  the  new  by  grada- 
tions which  should  avoid  violence,  and  its  concomitants,  confu- 
sion and  misery. 

The  last  great  dramatic  work  of  Schiller — and  whether  it 
be  not  the  grandest  production  of  his  genius  I  leave  to  others 
to  judge — is  founded  on  the  most  remarkable  and  beneficent 
political  revolution  which,  previous  to  our  own,  the  world  had 
seen — an  event  the  glory  of  which  belongs  solely  to  the  Teu- 
tonic race — that  ancient  vindication  of  the  great  right  of  na- 
tionality and  independent  government,  the  revolt  of  Switzer- 
land against  the  domination  of  Austria,  which  gave  birth  to  a 
republic  now  venerable  with  the  antiquity  of  five  hundred 


FREDERICK  SCHILLER. 


2I9 


years.  He  took  a  silent  page  from  history,  and,  animating  the 
personages  of  whom  it  speaks  with  the  fiery  life  of  his  own 
spirit,  and  endowing  them  with  his  own  superhuman  elo- 
quence, he  formed  it  into  a  living  protest  against  foreign  do- 
minion which  yet  rings  throughout  the  world.  Wherever 
there  are  generous  hearts,  wherever  there  are  men  who  hold 
in  reverence  the  rights  of  their  fellow-men,  wherever  the  love 
of  country  and  the  love  of  mankind  coexist,  Schiller's  drama 
of  "  William  Tell "  stirs  the  blood  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  dwell  on  the  eminent  literary  quali- 
ties which  make  so  large  a  part  of  the  greatness  of  Schiller, 
and  which  have  been  more  ably  set  forth  by  others  than  they 
can  be  by  me.  It  is  not  for  me  to  analyze  his  excellences  as  a 
dramatic  poet ;  I  will  not  speak  of  his  beautiful  and  flowing 
lyrics,  the  despair  of  translators ;  I  will  say  nothing  of  his 
noble  histories,  written  like  his  dramas,  for  all  mankind — for  it 
was  his  maxim  that  he  who  wrote  for  one  nation  only  pro- 
posed to  himself  a  poor  and  narrow  aim.  These  topics  would 
require  more  time  than  you  could  give  me,  and  I  should  shrink 
with  dismay  from  a  task  of  such  extent  and  magnitude.  Let 
me  close  with  observing  that  there  is  yet  one  other  respect  in 
which,  as  a  member  of  the  great  world  of  letters,  Schiller  is 
entitled  to  the  veneration  of  all  mankind. 

He  was  an  earnest  seeker  after  truth  ;  a  man  whose  moral 
nature  revolted  at  every  form  of  deceit ;  a  noble  example  of 
what  his  countrymen  mean  when  they  claim  the  virtue  of  sin- 
cerity for  the  German  race.  He  held  with  Akenside  that  ' 

"—Truth  and  Good  are  one, 
And  Beauty  dwells  in  them  "  ; 

that  on  the  ascertainment  and  diffusion  of  truth  the  welfare  of 
mankind  largely  depends,  and  that  only  mischief  and  misery 
can  spring  from  delusions  and  prejudices,  however  enshrined 
in  the  respect  of  the  world  and  made  venerable  by  the  lapse 
of  years.  The  office  of  him  who  labored  in  the  field  of  letters, 
he  thought,  was  to  make  mankind  better  and  happier  by  illus- 

VOL.  II. — 15 


220  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

trating  and  enforcing  the  relations  and  duties  of  justice,  benefi- 
cence, and  brotherhood,  by  which  men  are  bound  to  each 
other ;  and  he  never  forgot  this  in  anything  which  he  wrote. 
Immortal  honor  to  him  whose  vast  powers  were  employed  to 
so  worthy  a  purpose,  and  may  the  next  hundredth  anniversary 
of  his  birth  be  celebrated  with  even  a  warmer  enthusiasm 
than  this ! 


JOHN  WINTHROP. 


TEN  years  after  the  landing  of  our  forefathers  on  the 
Plymouth  Rock  there  came  to  the  New  World  one  of  the 
noblest  men  whom  England  ever  produced,  John  Winthrop, 
the  first  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  a  man  in  whom  met  all 
the  virtues  of  the  grand  old  Puritan  stock  to  which  he  be- 
longed, with  few  of  their  faults.  While  he  lived  in  England 
he  had  settled  in  his  mind  the  principles  of  a  large  and  enlight- 
ened toleration  of  all  religious  persuasions,  and,  if  he  severed 
from  these  principles  after  coming  to  America,  it  was  owing 
to  the  force  of  public  opinion,  the  madness  of  the  times,  a  sort 
of  frenzy  of  which  there  are  not  wanting  examples  even  in  our 
day,  which,  seizing  upon  a  whole  people,  hurries  along  in  the 
same  course  the  moderate,  rational,  and  humane,  almost  equal- 
ly with  the  fierce,  passionate,  and  relentless.  In  the  later  years 
of  his  life,  however,  he  seems  to  have  recurred  to  his  earlier 
convictions,  for  we  are  told  that  he  lamented  the  severities 
which  had  been  practiced  against  heretics,  and  wished  that 
gentler  methods  had  been  used. 

But  it  was  not  this  to  which  I  wished  to  direct  your  atten- 
tion. I  would  present  him  to  you  as  one  wise  beyond  his 
time  in  that  wisdom  which  public  men,  under  the  discipline  of 

*  From  a  speech  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the  New  England  Society  of  New  York, 
December  22,  1860. 


222  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  press,  have  learned  from  the  experience  of  modern  times 
— as  one  who  was  both  too  magnanimous  and  too  far-sighted 
to  obstruct  in  any  degree  the  fresh  discussion  of  the  merits  of 
his  administration.  Chief  magistrate  as  he  was,  invested  with 
large  powers,  and  possessing  great  influence,  he  took  no  notice 
of  the  attacks  on  his  public  conduct,  instituted  no  prosecu- 
tions, formed  no  schemes  of  vengeance,  laid  up  no  malice.  He 
lived  down  calumny  ;  he  rejected  false  accusations  by  disinter- 
ested services  and  a  masterly  silence. 

There  is  a  class  of  journalists — I  am  glad  they  are  not  nu- 
merous— who  delight  in  nothing  so  much  as  in  finding  a  pub- 
lic man  so  sensitive  as  to  notice  their  assaults.  The  more 
frequently  and  the  more  at  large  he  answers,  the  better  are 
they  satisfied  ;  it  gives  them  occupation,  it  furnishes  them 
with  amusement,  it  adds  to  their  importance.  There  were 
none  of  this  tribe  in  the  days  of  Governor  Winthrop,  but  I 
doubt  whether  the  public  men  of  that  day  gained  anything  by 
this  exemption.  The  tongue  then  performed  the  office  which 
types  perform  now,  and  a  saucy  letter,  copies  of  which  were 
handed  about,  answered  the  purpose  of  a  modern  newspaper. 
Winthrop  was  the  object  of  both  modes  of  detraction,  but  he 
preserved  throughout  the  same  calm  forbearance.  He  seemed, 
says  Cotton  Mather  in  his  biography  of  this  great  man,  to 
have  no  other  language  than  that  of  Theodosius  :  "  If  any  man 
speak  evil  of  the  Governor,  if  it  be  through  lightness  it  is  to 
be  contemned ;  if  it  be  through  madness  it  is  to  be  pitied ;  if 
it  be  through  injury  it  is  to  be  remitted."  He  then  proceeds 
to  relate  that  a  member  of  the  court,  by  which  is  meant  the 
legislative  body  of  the  province — the  people  of  Massachusetts 
call  their  Legislature  the  General  Court  yet — once  wrote  him 
a  very  sharp  letter,  an  abusive  letter  it  would  probably  be 
called  in  modern  language.  Winthrop  read  it  and  returned  it 
to  the  messenger.  "  Take  it  back,"  said  he ;  "I  am  unwilling  to 
keep  so  great  a  matter  of  provocation  by  me."  Afterward 
came  a  season  of  scarcity  of  provisions,  and  the  writer  of  the 
letter  sent  to  Winthrop  desiring  that  he  would  sell  him  some 


JOHN   WINTHROP.  223 

of  his  cattle.  "  Accept  what  I  send  you,"  was  Winthrop's 
answer,  "  as  a  token  of  my  good-will."  "  Sir,"  replied  the 
gentleman,  "  the  overcoming  of  yourself  hath  overcome  me," 
and  he  afterward  stood  his  friend. 

Such  was  the  greatness  of  mind  shown  by  one  who  bore 
a  most  important  part  in  laying  the  foundation  of  that  noble 
commonwealth  of  which  many  whom  I  see  at  this  board  are 
natives.  He  saw  the  true  policy  of  a  political  administration 
for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  before  it  was  discerned 
by  the  government  of  the  mother  country,  for  you  will  re- 
member that  it  was  within  the  present  century  that  the  prose- 
cuting officers  of  the  British  government  cast  into  prison 
James  Montgomery,  gentlest  of  poets,  for  having  published  a 
little  paragraph  in  which  he  intimated  a  modest  disapproval 
of  something  done  by  persons  high  in  place.  But,  if  Governor 
Winthrop  anticipated  in  one  respect  the  wisdom  of  later 
times,  there  is  yet  another  respect  in  which  the  virtue  of  men 
at  the  present  day  comes  far  short  of  his.  "  He  sometimes," 
says  Cotton  Mather,  "  made  his  private  purse  the  public's,  not 
by  sucking  into  it,  but  by  squeezing  out  of  it ;  and,  when  the 
Treasury  had  nothing  in  it,  defrayed  the  public  charges  with 
his  own  means."  It  is  not  often  that  the  private  purses  of  pub- 
lic men  are  now  depleted  in  this  way,  and  the  rumor  goes  that 
many  of  them  are  filled  by  the  process  of  suction  to  which 
Winthrop's  biographer  alludes. 

There  is  an  anecdote  related  of  Governor  Winthrop  which 
illustrates  equally  his  kindness  of  heart  and  his  wit.  If  any  of 
you  have  heard  or  read  it  before,  as  may  well  be  the  case,  I  beg 
you  to  forget  that  little  circumstance  and  endeavor  to  be  as 
much  entertained  by  it  as  if  it  were  entirely  new.  It  was  win- 
ter. Somebody  told  the  Governor  that  a  man  in  his  neigh- 
borhood stole  wood  from  his  pile.  "  Does  he  so  ?  "  said  Win- 
throp, in  seeming  anger.  "  Send  him  to  me  ;  I  warrant  I  will 
cure  him  of  stealing  my  wood."  The  man  came.  "  Friend," 
said  Winthrop,  "  this  is  a  severe  winter,  and  I  doubt  you  are  ill- 
provided  with  wood.  Supply  yourself,  I  pray  you,  from  my 


224  '    OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

pile  till  the  cold  season  be  over."  And  then  he  merrily  asked 
his  friends,  says  Mather,  who  understood  and  enjoyed  a  joke, 
whether  he  had  not  effectually  cured  the  man  of  stealing  his 
wood. 

Let  me  refer  to  another  incident  in  this  great  man's  life. 
Between  the  colonies  of  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  Bay  lay 
a  broad  tract  of  original  forest,  but  the  settlements  were  in- 
creasing rapidly,  and  Winthrop  early  saw  the  importance  of 
united  counsels  and  a  good  correspondence  between  the  two 
provinces.  Mather  compares  them  to  two  floating  bottles, 
with  the  motto  :  "  If  we  strike  against  each  other  we  are 
dashed  to  pieces."  Winthrop,  in  the  year  1632,  made  a  jour- 
ney on  foot — in  company  with  his  friend  and  pastor,  the  eccen- 
tric John  Wilson — through  what  his  biographer  calls  a  howl- 
ing wilderness,  by  which  I  suppose  is  meant  a  region  infested 
with  wild  beasts  and  savages.  The  pedestrian  embassy  was 
received  with  honor  ;  a  consultation  was  held,  and  Winthrop 
had  the  satisfaction  of  establishing  between  the  two  colonies 
friendly  relations,  which  lasted  till  they  were  finally  united  in 
one.  Here  was  the  seminal  principle  of  our  American  Union 
— the  embryo  which  afterward  grew  into  our  great  league  of 
States.  Then  was  laid  the  corner-stone  of  that  noble  structure, 
on  the  pillars  of  which  rash  hands  are  now  laid.  Undying 
honor  to  the  memory  of  such  a  man,  and  of  his  noble  example 
thousands  of  imitators. 


A  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS.* 


I  THANK  you,  Mr.  President,  for  the  kind  words  you  have 
uttered,  and  I  thank  this  good-natured  company  for  having 
listened  to  them  with  so  many  tokens  of  assent  and  approba- 
tion. I  must  suppose,  however,  that  most  of  this  approbation 
was  bestowed  upon  the  orator  rather  than  upon  his  subject. 
He  who  has  brought  to  the  writing  of  our  national  history  a 
genius  equal  to  the  vastness  of  the  subject  has,  of  course,  more 
than  talent  enough  for  humbler  tastes.  I  wonder  not,  there- 
fore, that  he  should  be  applauded  this  evening  for  the  skill  he 
has  shown  in  embellishing  a  barren  topic. 

I  am  congratulated  on  having  completed  my  seventieth 
year.  Is  there  nothing  ambiguous,  Mr.  President,  in  such  a 
compliment?  To  be  congratulated  on  one's  senility  !  To  be 
congratulated  on  having  reached  that  stage  of  life  when  the 
bodily  and  mental  powers  pass  into  decline  and  de9ay ! 
Lear  is  made  by  Shakespeare  to  say : 

"  Age  is  unnecessary." 

And  a  later  poet,  Dr.  Johnson,  expressed  the  same  idea  in  one 
of  his  sonorous  lines : 

"  Superfluous  lags  the  veteran  on  the  stage." 

*  Delivered  in  the  rooms  of  the  Century  Club,  in  reply  to  one  of  George  Bancroft, 
Esq.,  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Bryant's  seventieth  birthday,  November  3,  1864. 


226  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

You  have  not  forgotten,  Mr.  President,  the  old  Greek  say- 
ing: 

"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young  " — 

nor  the  passage  in  Shakespeare  : 

— "  Oh,  sir,  the  good  die  first, 
And  they,  whose  hearts  are  dry  as  summer  dust, 
Burn  to  the  socket." 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  wisdom  of  Old  Age.  Old  Age 
is  wise,  I  grant,  for  itself,  but  not  wise  for  the  community.  It 
is  wise  in  declining  new  enterprises,  for  it  has  not  the  power 
nor  the  time  to  execute  them ;  wise  in  shrinking  from  diffi- 
culty, for  it  has  not  the  strength  to  overcome  it ;  wise  in  avoid- 
ing danger,  for  it  lacks  the  faculty  of  ready  and  swift  action, 
by  which  dangers  are  parried  and  converted  into  advantages. 
But  this  is  not  wisdom  for  mankind  at  large,  by  whom  new 
enterprises  must  be  undertaken,  dangers  met,  and  difficulties 
surmounted.  What  a  world  would  this  be  if  it  were  made  up 
of  old  men ! — generation  succeeding  to  generation  of  hoary 
ancients  who  had  but  half  a  dozen  years,  or  perhaps  half  that 
time,  to  live  !  What  new  work  of  good  would  be  attempted  ! 
What  existing  abuse  or  evil  corrected  !  What  strange  subjects 
would  such  a  world  afford  for  the  pencils  of  our  artists — groups 
of  superannuated  graybeards  basking  in  the  sun  through  the 
long  days  of  spring,  or  huddling  like  sheep  in  warm  corners 
in  the  winter  time  ;  houses  with  the  timbers  dropping  apart ; 
cities  in  ruins ;  roads  unwrought  and  impassable ;  weedy 
gardens  and  fields  with  the  surface  feebly  scratched  to  put  in 
a  scanty  harvest ;  feeble  old  men  climbing  into  crazy  wagons, 
perhaps  to  be  run  away  with,  or  mounting  horses,  if  they 
mounted  them  at  all,  in  terror  of  being  hurled  from  their  backs 
like  a  stone  from  a  sling !  Well  it  is  that  in  this  world  of  ours 
the  old  men  are  but  a  very  small  minority. 

Ah,  Mr.  President,  if  we  could  but  stop  this  rushing  tide  of 
time  that  bears  us  so  swiftly  onward  and  make  it  flow  toward 
its  source ;  if  we  could  cause  the  shadow  to  turn  back  on  the 


A  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS.  22/ 

dial-plate !  I  see  before  me  many  excellent  friends  of  mine 
worthy  to  live  a  thousand  years,  on  whose  countenances  years 
have  set  their  seal,  marking  them  with  the  lines  of  thought 
and  care,  and  causing  their  temples  to  glisten  with  the  frosts 
of  life's  autumn.  If  to  any  one  of  these  could  be  restored  his 
glorious  prime,  his  golden  youth,  with  its  hyacinthine  locks, 
its  smooth,  unwrinkled  brow,  its  fresh  and  rounded  cheek,  its 
pearly  and  perfect  teeth,  its  lustrous  eyes,  its  light  and  agile 
step,  its  frame  full  of  energy,  its  exulting  spirits,  its  high  hopes, 
its  generous  impulses — and  add  all  these  to  the  experience 
and  fixed  principles  of  mature  age,  I  am  sure,  Mr.  President, 
that  I  should  start  at  once  to  my  feet  and  propose  that,  in  com- 
memoration of  such  a  marvel  and  by  way  of  congratulating 
our  friend  who  was  its  subject,  we  should  hold  such  a  festivity 
as  the  Century  has  never  seen  nor  will  ever  see  again.  Elo- 
quence should  bring  its  highest  tribute,  and  Art  its  fairest 
decorations,  to  grace  the  festival ;  the  most  skilful  musicians 
should  be  here  with  all  manner  of  instruments  of  music,  an- 
cient and  modern ;  we  would  have  sackbut  and  trumpet  and 
shawm,  and  damsels  with  dulcimers,  and  a  modern  band  three 
times  as  large  as  the  one  that  now  plays  on  that  balcony.  But 
why  dwell  on  such  a  vain  dream,  since  it  is  only  by  passing 
through  the  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  that  man  can 
reach  his  second  youth  ? 

I  have  read,  in  descriptions  of  the  Old  World,  of  the  fami- 
lies of  princes  and  barons  coming  out  of  their  castles  to  be  pres- 
ent at  some  rustic  festivity,  such  as  a  wedding  of  one  of  their 
peasantry.  I  am  reminded  of  this  custom  by  the  presence  of 
many  literary  persons  of  eminence  in  these  rooms,  and  I  thank 
them  for  this  act  of  benevolence.  Yet  I  miss  among  them 
several  whom  I  wished  rather  than  ventured  to  hope  that  I 
should  meet  on  this  occasion.  I  miss  my  old  friend  Dana,  who 
gave  so  grandly  the  story  of  "  The  Buccaneer  "  in  his  solemn 
verses.  I  miss  Pierpont,  venerable  in  years,  yet  vigorous  in 
mind  and  body,  and  with  an  undimmed  fancy ;  and  him  whose 
pages  are  wet  with  the  tears  of  maidens  who  read  the  story  of 


228  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

"  Evangeline  " ;  and  the  author  of  "  Fanny  "  and  the  "  Croakers," 
no  less  renowned  for  the  fiery  spirit  which  animates  his  "  Marco 
Bozzaris  " ;  and  him  to  whose  wit  we  owe  the  "  Biglow  Papers," 
who  has  made  a  lowly  flower  of  the  wayside  as  classical  as  the 
rose  of  Anacreon ;  and  the  Quaker  poet  whose  verses,  Quaker 
as  he  is,  stir  the  blood  like  the  voice  of  a  trumpet  calling  to 
battle ;  and  the  poetess  of  Hartford,  whose  beautiful  lyrics  are 
in  a  million  hands ;  and  others  whose  names,  were  they  to  oc- 
cur to  me  here  as  in  my  study,  I  might  accompany  with  the 
mention  of  some  characteristic  merit.  But  here  is  he  whose 
aerial  verse  has  raised  the  little  insect  of  our  fields,  the  humble- 
bee,  making  its  murmuring  journey  from  flower  to  flower,  to 
a  dignity  equal  to  that  of  Pindar's  eagle ;  here  is  the  "Autocrat 
of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  author  of  that  most  spirited  of  naval 
lyrics,  beginning  with  the  line  : 

"  Aye,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down  !  " 

Here,  too,  is  the  poet  who  told  in  pathetic  verse  the  story  of 
Jephtha's  daughter ;  and  here  are  others,  worthy  compeers  of 
those  I  have  mentioned,  yet  greatly  my  juniors,  in  the  bright- 
ness of  whose  rising  fame  I  am  like  one  who  has  carried  a 
lantern  in  the  night,  and  who  perceives  that  its  beams  are  no 
longer  visible  in  the  glory  which  the  morning  pours  around 
him.  To  them,  and  to  all  members  of  the  Century,  allow  me, 
Mr.  President,  to  offer  the  wish  that  they  may  live  longer 
than  I  have  done  in  health  of  body  and  mind  and  in  the  same 
contentment  and  serenity  of  spirit  which  has  fallen  to  my  lot. 
I  mijst  not  overlook  the  ladies  who  have  deigned  to  honor 
these  rooms  with  their  presence.  If  I  knew  where,  amid 
myrtle  bowers  and  flowers  that  never  wither,  gushed  from  the 
ground  the  fountain  of  perpetual  youth  so  long  vainly  sought 
by  the  first  Spanish  adventurers  on  the  North  American  con- 
tinent, I  would  offer  to  the  lips  of  every  one  of  them  a  beaker 
of  its  fresh  and  sparkling  waters,  and  bid  them  drink  unfading 
bloom.  But,  since  that  is  not  to  be,  I  will  wish  what  perhaps 
is  as  well,  and  what  some  would  think  better :  that  the  same 


A  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS.  229 

kindness  of  heart  which  has  prompted  them  to  come  hither  to- 
night may  lend  a  beauty  to  every  action  of  their  future  lives. 
And  to  the  Century  Club  itself — the  dear  old  Century  Club — 
to  whose  members  I  owe  both  the  honors  and  the  embarrass- 
ments of  this  occasion — to  that  association,  fortunate  in  having 
possessed  two  such  presidents  as  the  distinguished  historian 
who  now  occupies  the  chair,  and  the  eminent  and  accom- 
plished scholar  and  admirable  writer  who  preceded  him,  I 
offer  the  wish  that  it  may  endure,  not  only  for  the  term  of 
years  signified  by  its  name — not  for  one  century  only,  but  for 
ten  centuries — so  that  hereafter,  perhaps,  its  members  may 
discuss  the  question  whether  its  name  should  not  be  changed 
to  that  of  the  Club  of  a  Thousand  Years,  and  that  these  may 
be  centuries  of  peace  and  prosperity,  from  which  its  members 
may  look  back  to  this  period  of  bloody  strife  as  to  a  frightful 
dream  soon  chased  away  by  the  beams  of  a  glorious  morning. 


THE  ACADEMY  OF  DESIGN.* 


I  CONGRATULATE  the  Academy  of  Design  and  all  the  friends 
of  art  on  the  event  of  this  day.  After  forty  years  of  wander- 
ing, the  Academy  has  at  length  a  fixed  habitation.  Ever  since 
the  year  1825,  when  the  Drawing  Association  was  formed,  the 
germ,  the  embryo,  out  of  which  arose  in  the  following  year 
this  Academy  with  its  present  name  and  organization,  the 
tribes  of  art  may  be  said  to  have  dwelt  in  tents.  The  close  of 
this  nomadic  stage  in  their  history  is  marked  by  rearing  this 
temple  to  art — built  after  a  pattern  of  mediaeval  architecture, 
yet  with  an  historical  congruity  to  the  purpose  it  will  serve, 
since  it  was  for  the  adornment  of  buildings  not  dissimilar  in 
style  that  the  art  of  modern  painting  put  forth  its  early  efforts, 
and  advanced  to  that  stage  of  perfection  which  gave  us  the 
great  colorists  of  the  Venetian  school. 

I  congratulate  you  all,  therefore,  on  the  completion  of  a 
building,  not  one  stone  of  which  from  the  foundation  to  the 
roof  was  laid,  and  not  one  beam  or  rafter  framed  into  its  place, 
for  any  other  purpose  than  the  glory  of  art. 

A  little  while  since,  I  was  here,  and  admired  the  spacious 
halls  and  saloons,  with  their  lofty  ceilings,  and  the  pure  light 
admitted  only  from  the  zenith,  bringing  with  it  no  tinge  of 
color  from  surrounding  objects.  Since  that  time  art  has  en- 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  new  building  of  the  Academy  of 
Design,  April  28,  1865. 


THE  ACADEMY  OF  DESIGN.  231 

tered  with  the  works  of  the  pencil  and  the  chisel,  covering  the 
bare  walls  and  occupying  the  floors  with  imitations  of  nature 
which  we  view  this  evening  with  wonder  and  delight — the 
spring,  the  summer,  the  autumn,  the  winter  of  our  brilliant 
climate  disputing  the  palm  of  splendor ;  the  blaze  of  the  trop- 
ics and  the  cold  light  of  icebergs  brought  into  a  New  York 
saloon ;  Italian  skies  glowing  beside  them  ;  the  wild  grandeur 
of  our  own  Rocky  Mountains  confronting  the  majestic  scenery 
of  Switzerland  ;  manly  faces  and  the  eyes  of  fair  woman  and 
fresh-cheeked  children  looking  down  upon  us ;  scenes  from 
the  domestic  fireside  ;  glimpses  of  camp  life  and  the  tumult  of 
war,  drawn  from  our  own  civil  strife ;  and  on  pedestals  among 
the  crowd  of  spectators  the  works  of  the  statuary,  busts  that 
seem  to  think,  and  groups  which  are  tragedies  and  comedies 
in  miniature. 

When  I  look  around  upon  these  productions  of  the  genius 
of  our  countrymen  and  compare  them  with  what  we  produced 
forty  years  since,  I  cannot  help  imagining  to  myself  what 
must  have  been  the  astonishment  of  a  New  Yorker  of  that 
day  could  he  have  been  transported  to  a  spectacle  like  this 
from  one  of  the  meagre  exhibitions  of  the  old  and  now  forgot- 
ten Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  made  up  mostly  of  pictures 
which  had  appeared  on  its  walls  from  year  to  year  till  they 
palled  upon  the  eye. 

Scarcely  less  would  have  been  the  surprise  of  one  of  the 
founders  of  this  Academy,  if  he  could  have  been  assured  that 
within  forty  years  from  that  time  there  would  be  freely  con- 
tributed by  the  residents  of  this  city  the  means  of  erecting  a 
gallery  for  the  display  of  works  of  art,  vying  in  spaciousness 
and  beauty  of  arrangement  with  the  proud  repositories  of  art 
in  Europe.  I  did  not  myself  believe  that  this  could  be  done 
till  I  was  told  that  the  necessary  funds  were  nearly  collected. 
What !  said  I  to  myself ;  are  we  to  expect  in  this  great  seat  of 
commerce,  where  everything  is  estimated  according  to  the 
value  set  against  it  in  the  price-current,  that  men  will  con- 
tribute their  thousands  to  the  erection  of  a  grand  building  in 


232  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

which  young  artists  are  to  bring  their  works  before  the  public 
eye,  and  recommend  themselves  to  the  public  favor  ?  A  few  I 
know  would  cheerfully  give,  the  many  I  thought  would  with- 
hold. I  was  mistaken.  I  underrated  not  the  liberality  of  the 
New  York  public,  for  I  had  ample  evidence  of  that  in  what 
shortly  before  it  had  so  generously  done  for  the  relief  of  Kan- 
sas, but  I  underrated  its  taste  and  its  respect  for  art.  This 
sumptuous  building,  these  wide  and  lofty  halls,  are  the  rebuke 
— the  mute  yet  magnificent  rebuke — of  my  incredulity.  Was 
ever  injurious  misgiving  shown  in  a  more  noble  manner  to  be 
groundless  ? 

Yet,  while  we  look  back  to  the  state  of  art  in  this  country 
at  the  time  when  the  Academy  was  founded,  let  us  not  deem 
lightly  of  the  merit  of  its  founders.  That  was  by  no  means  a 
low  condition  of  things  which  produced  such  men.  Of  those 
who  have  since  passed  to  another  life,  Cole  was  then  in  the 
early  dawn  of  his  fame  ;  Inman  was  painting  those  graceful 
portraits  which  we  yet  behold  with  admiration ;  and  Ingham 
those  elaborate  female  forms  and  faces  which,  now  that  time 
has  ripened  and  mellowed  his  tints  and  softened  and  shadowed 
what  was  hard  in  his  finish,  remain  our  prized  memorials  of  the 
beauty  of  a  generation  then  in  its  prime.  Of  Cole,  I  vividly 
remember  the  interest  with  which  his  works  were  at  that  time 
regarded.  It  was  like  the  interest  awakened  by  some  great 
discovery.  Here,  we  said,  is  a  young  man  who  does  not  paint 
nature  at  second  hand,  or  with  any  apparent  remembrance  of 
the  copies  of  her  made  by  others.  Here  is  the  physiognomy 
of  our  own  woods  and  fields  ;  here  are  the  tinges  of  our  own 
atmosphere ;  here  is  American  nature  and  the  feeling  it  awak- 
ens. You  have  only  to  look  at  his  pictures  to  see  that  they 
represent  the  features  of  no  region  but  that  in  which  we 
dwell. 

Concerning  Inman,  let  me  relate  a  single  anecdote.  The 
poet  Wordsworth,  whose  portrait  he  had  painted,  said  to  me  : 
"  I  have  often  seen  the  process  of  painting,  but  I  never  saw 
the  pencil  handled  with  such  precision  and  apparent  mastery 


THE  ACADEMY  OF  DESIGN. 


233 


as  by  Inman.  There  was  no  hesitation,  no  delay  in  putting 
any  of  his  touches  upon  the  canvas ;  he  placed  them  at  once 
where  he  meant  to  place  them,  and  they  were  the  very 
touches  he  wanted." 

Inman  was  a  rapid  painter,  but  Ingham  was  an  artist  of  a 
different  school.  He  finished  his  portraits  with  infinite  dili- 
gence and  frequent  and  careful  cor  rections.  In  personal  char- 
acter he  was  a  man  of  instant  and  almost  impetuous  decision  ; 
but,  in  painting,  he  reached  the  beauty  at  which  he  aimed 
by  gradual  and  cautious  approaches,  slowly  shaping  his  first 
shadowy  and  indefinite  forms  to  symmetry  and  expression. 
Some  of  the  pictures  of  Inman,  painted  in  his  rapid  manner,  are 
already  blackened  by  time ;  those  of  Ingham  I  think  will  be 
more  prized  a  few  years  hence  than  in  his  life-time.  One  of 
his  most  beautiful  was  painted  just  before  his  death — a  female 
head,  with  a  fine,  spiritual  expression,  as  if  the  bright  eyes 
were  looking  directly  into  heaven. 

Let  me  not,  however,  neglect  to  speak  of  Dunlap,  the  old- 
est member  of  the  Academy  at  the  time  when  it  was  founded, 
and  the  historian  of  the  "  Arts  of  Design  "  in  our  country.  We 
cannot  call  him  eminent  either  as  a  writer  or  as  an  artist,  but 
he  did  much  by  his  large  historical  paintings,  exhibited  by  his 
pupils  all  over  the  country,  to  give  our  people  an  idea  of  what 
a  picture  ought  to  be,  and  to  awaken  in  them  a  taste  for  art. 
Very  much  younger  than  this  amiable  man  was  Frederick 
Agate,  carried  off  in  the  midst  of  his  early  promise  by  a  con- 
sumption contracted  in  the  zealous  pursuit  of  his  studies.,  I 
remember  him  as  more  interesting  than  entertaining,  serious, 
somewhat  reserved,  slow  of  speech,  choosing  for  his  pencil 
such  melancholy  subjects  as  the  "  Dead  Mother  and  her 
Child,"  cast  by  the  waves  on  a  sea-beach,  and  Ugolino,  whose 
story  is  so  pathetically  told  by  Dante,  perishing  with  his 
children  of  hunger  in  the  Tower  of  Famine.  "  I  like  such  sub- 
jects," he  once  said  to  me.  Perhaps  some  dim  presentiment 
of  his  own  early  departure  already  darkened  his  imagination 
with  its  shadow. 


234  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

At  present  I  believe  that  only  three  out  of  the  twenty-five 
artists  who  founded  the  Academy  are  now  living — Morse,  its 
first  president,  to  whom  the  cause  of  art  in  this  country  owes 
so  large  a  debt ;  Durand,  his  successor,  then  an  engraver, 
whose  landscapes,  full  of  sunshine  and  peace,  are  reflections  of 
the  kindly  serenity  of  his  own  nature ;  and  Cummings,  the 
treasurer  of  this  institution  from  the  beginning,  who  has  turned 
from  the  production  of  his  beautiful  miniatures  to  the  task  of 
teaching  the  art  he  practiced  so  long  and  well,  and  who  has 
just  laid  before  us  a  welcome  gift,  the  history  of  the  Academy 
for  the  forty  years  which  now  close.  Late  may  arrive  the  hour 
which  gathers  these  honored  survivors  to  their  associates. 

Meantime  an  important  change  has  taken  place  in  regard 
to  the  social  position  of  those  who  make  the  fine  arts  their 
profession.  Forty  years  since,  their  occupation  was  not  re- 
garded as  it  is  now.  The  majority  of  fashionable  people,  I  be- 
lieve, or,  if  not  the  majority,  very  many  of  them,  would  almost 
as  soon  have  thought  of  asking  a  hod-carrier  to  their  enter- 
tainments as  a  painter.  But  now  I  find  the  artists  courted  and 
caressed  by  that  very  class.  Eminent  artists  have  become 
lions  of  the  salon ;  the  artists'  receptions  are  thronged  with 
what  the  newspapers  call  the  beauty  and  fashion  of  the  me- 
tropolis ;  the  artists'  studios  are  frequented  by  distinguished 
men  and  elegant  women  ;  and  the  young  artist  has  more  invi- 
tations to  mingle  in  society  than  it  is  perhaps  good  for  him 
to  accept.  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  art  is  thus  honored,  but 
I  am  not  quite  sure  that  the  change  is  in  every  respect  for 
the  advantage  of  the  artist,  and  I  hope  that  none  of  my  young 
friends  of  the  brush  or  the  chisel  will  allow  themselves  to  be 
spoiled  by  it. 

I  have  spoken  hitherto  of  the  past,  comparing  it  with  the 
present,  but  I  cannot  conclude  without  a  word  concerning  the 
future.  I  am  confident  in  the  expectation  that  a  day  of  great 
glory  for  art  in  this  country  is  at  hand — a  day  of  which  we  now 
behold  the  morning — coincident  with  the  signal  overthrow  of 
a  mighty  and  fearful  conspiracy  against  our  national  existence, 


THE  ACADEMY  OF  DESIGN. 


235 


and  with  the  near  prospect  of  returning  peace.  The  temper- 
ament of  our  people  and  the  influence  of  our  climate  are,  I 
think,  highly  favorable  to  the  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts.  Some 
quality  in  the  air  of  our  part  of  the  world,  which  I  do  not  pre- 
tend otherwise  to  define,  promotes,  unless  I  am  greatly  mis- 
taken, the  activity  of  those  faculties  which  conspire  to  make 
the  great  painter  and  sculptor.  The  phrenological  philoso- 
pher Combe  used  to  call  ours  a  stimulating  climate,  and  he 
was  right  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  generate  that  poetic  exhilara- 
tion to  which  the  creations  of  art  owe  their  birth.  An  Eng- 
lish painter,  who  had  lived  many  years  in  this  country,  and 
who  had  just  returned  to  it  after  a  long  visit  to  his  native  land, 
said  to  me :  "  I  had  hardly  been  in  Boston  twenty-four  hours, 
after  landing  on  the  American  shore,  when  I  wanted  to  go 
out  into  the  streets  and  shout — so  greatly  were  my  spirits 
raised  by  merely  breathing  your  air."  Another  English  artist, 
a  sculptor,  said  to  me  on  a  fine  October  morning,  when  the  at- 
mosphere was  full  of  life  and  spirit,  the  soft  white  clouds  drift- 
ing before  a  pleasant  wind  through  a  deep-blue  sky  :  "  I  cannot 
express  how  much  I  am  exhilarated  by  your  climate.  I  think 
it  one  of  the  best  in  the  world  for  a  young  man,  and  one  of 
the  worst  for  an  old  man." 

I  quote  only  foreign  authorities,  for  I  know  how  easy  it  is 
in  such  matters  to  deceive  ourselves.  But  I  have  no  doubt 
for  my  part  that,  in  the  temperament  formed  by  our  diversi- 
fied climate,  the  perceptive  faculties  are  peculiarly  awake  and 
active,  drinking  in  the  sights  and  sounds  of  Nature  with  a 
deeper  delight  than  in  climates  of  a  more  uniform  character, 
and  that  the  power  of  invention  is  quickened  by  the  same  causes 
to  the  same  activity  and  energy.  These  varying  aspects  of 
our  skies,  imposing  alike  in  their  splendor  and  their  gloom, 
these  grand  alternations  of  our  seasons,  these  majestic  vicissi- 
tudes, passing  from  polar  cold  to  tropical  heat  and  from  trop- 
ical heat  to  polar  cold,  with  the  phenomena  of  each  fierce  ex- 
treme, were  not  given  us  in  vain.  The  genius  nurtured  un- 
der their  influences  has  in  the  department  of  art  commanded 
VOL.  n.— 1 6 


236  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  admiration  of  the  hemisphere  from  which  our  race  was 
transplanted  to  this.  The  works  of  our  great  painters  have 
been  seen  with  delighted  surprise  in  the  Old  World ;  the  mas- 
terpieces of  American  sculpture  have  divided  the  praise  of 
mankind  with  the  productions  of  the  most  eminent  statuaries 
of  modern  times.  Let  us  hope  that  the  opening  of  this  edifice, 
consecrated  to  art,  will  mark  our  entrance  upon  a  new  stage 
of  progress,  even  higher  and  nobler  than  we  have  yet  attained. 


MEXICO  AND  MAXIMILIAN; 


IN  giving  out  the  third  toast  of  the  evening,  allow  me  to 
introduce  it  by  a  few  words.  We  are  come  together  to  do 
honor  to  a  gentleman  who,  for  several  years  past,  has  repre- 
sented among  us  a  sister  republic,  with  an  ability  worthy  of  a 
great  cause,  and  a  fortitude  and  constancy  of  purpose  equal  to 
his  ability.  There  is  nothing,  my  friends,  which  more  surely 
commands  the  respect  of  mankind,  and,  let  me  say,  there  are 
few  things  which  more  deserve  it,  than  a  brave  perseverance 
in  a  righteous  cause.  Of  men  distinguished  by  this  virtue, 
history  makes  up  her  roll  of  heroes,  and  the  church  her  noble 
army  of  martyrs.  It  is  most  fitting  that  when  such  a  man  has 
stood  firmly  by  the  cause  of  his  country  and  of  liberty 
through  the  years  of  their  greatest  adversity  and  peril,  never 
faltering  in  his  fidelity,  never  allowing  himself  to  be  disheart- 
ened by  reverses,  but  resolutely  trusting  in  the  final  success  of 
the  right,  until  at  last  he  saw  it  gloriously  triumphant — most 
fitting  is  it  that  we  should  gather  around  him  to  congratulate 
him  that  his  constancy  is  at  last  rewarded,  that  the  tyrannical 
usurpation  against  which  he  has  so  steadily  protested  has  been 
foiled  and  overthrown,  and  the  liberties  which  the  kings  of  the 
earth  stood  up  to  destroy  have  been  nobly  vindicated.  Such 

*  From  remarks  at  the  dinner  given  to  Mr.  Romero,  the  minister  from  Mexico, 
October  3,  1867,  at  which  Mr.  Bryant  presided. 


238  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

is  the  man  who  is  now  our  guest ;  and  such,  in  brief,  is  the 
history  of  the  cause  in  which  he  distinguished  himself.  We 
who  have  all  along  given  that  cause  our  sympathies,  and  have 
looked  for  its  triumph  as  certain  to  follow  the  suppression  of 
the  rebellion  in  our  own  country,  offer  him  the  expression  of 
our  sincere  rejoicing  at  the  defeat  of  this  attempt  to  engraft 
European  absolutism  upon  the  institutions  of  our  continent, 
and  the  tribute  of  our  praise  for  the  foresight  of  his,  which, 
beholding  the  sunshine  beyond  the  tempest,  and  discerning 
the  sure  connection  between  the  cause  of  Mexico  and  that  of 
the  United  States,  looked  with  unwavering  confidence  for  the 
triumph  of  both.  The  tyranny  which  the  slave-holding  class 
strove  to  set  up  in  a  part  of  our  country  has  taken  its  place 
among  the  older  abortive  conspiracies  against  the  welfare  of 
the  human  race,  and  the  despotism  which  a  great  military 
power  of  the  Old  World  sought  to  enthrone  in  Mexico  has 
been  dragged  after  it  in  its  fall,  and  now  lies  with  it  in  the 
pit.  While  we  congratulate  our  friend  on  this  happy  con- 
summation, we  should  no  less  congratulate  the  people  of 
Mexico  on  having  shown,  by  their  obstinate  resistance  to  the 
imposition  of  a  foreign  yoke,  and  the  gallant  stand  they  have 
made  for  their  independence,  that  they  possess  qualities  of 
character  for  which  the  world  has  hitherto  given  them  small 
credit,  and  have  earned  for  themselves  an  honorable  name  in 
history. 

There  is  one  act  of  the  American  patriots  for  which  they 
have  been  greatly  maligned,  and  in  defence  of  which  our  guest 
has  thought  proper  at  one  time  to  speak.  I  mean  the  execu- 
tion of  the  pseudo-Emperor  of  Mexico.  With  regard  to  the 
policy  of  that  act,  I  admit  that  different  views  may  be  fairly 
entertained.  I  am  aware  also  that  there  are  those  who  would 
have  had  Maximilian  spared,  out  of  a  tender  regard  for  human 
life,  and  the  feeling  which  causes  a  generous  nature  to  shrink 
from  making  a  victim  of  an  enemy  whom  we  have  completely 
and  helplessly  in  our  power.  With  such  I  might  decline  any 
controversy.  But  it  is  not  by  any  such  transcendental  and 


MEXICO  AND  MAXIMILIAN. 


239 


unusual  standard  that  the  act  is  to  be  judged.  Its  moral  qual- 
ity is  to  be  estimated  according  to  the  ideas  of  justice  which 
prevail  throughout  civilized  countries,  and  which  doom  to 
death  him  who  takes  the  life  of  his  fellow-man  with  malice 
aforethought.  Maximilian,  at  a  time  when  his  prospects 
seemed  to  him  brightest,  issued  a  decree  to  the  effect  that 
whoever  was  taken  in  arms,  opposing  his  unprovoked  in- 
vasion of  their  country,  should  be  tried  by  a  military  com- 
mission and  shot,  and  this  decree  was  pitilessly  executed  in 
a  multitude  of  instances.  The  bitter  cup  which  he  had 
forced  the  innocent  to  taste  has  been  returned  to  his  own 
guilty  lips.  Who  that  knows  this  fact  can  deny  that  Maxi- 
milian deserved  death  as  richly  as  the  ruffian  who  enters 
your  dwelling  at  midnight  and  shoots  down  the  domestic 
who  attempts  its  defence  ? 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  he  was  excusable  because  he  had  a 
principle  more  guilty  than  himself  and  more  deserving  of  the 
death  of  a  felon — the  Emperor  of  France.  Napoleon  bribed 
him  by  the  offer  of  a  crown  to  break  into  Mexico  upon  his  er- 
rand of  robbery  and  bloodshed.  He  was  Napoleon's  hired 
assassin,  and  I  believe  that  is  the  utmost  that  can  be  said  for 
him.  When,  therefore,  a  peer  of  Great  Britain  and  a  Prime 
Minister  of  the  British  Empire  rises  in  his  place  and,  speaking 
of  the  execution  of  Maximilian,  pronounces  it  a  murder,  I  can 
find  no  palliation  for  so  gross  an  affront  to  truth  save  that  it 
was  spoken  in  shameful  ignorance  of  the  facts  of  history.  No, 
my  friend,  with  all  my  regard  for  human  life,  I  find  it  difficult 
to  answer  the  argument  of  those  who  urge  that  so  flagrant  an 
offence  against  the  rights  of  nations  as  was  committed  by 
Maximilian,  and  such  a  series  of  bloody  crimes  as  attended  his 
impious  enterprise,  deserved  something  more  than  that  their 
perpetrator  should  be  dismissed  to  ease  and  luxury  within  the 
walls  of  a  palace,  to  be  pitied  for  the  rest  of  his  life  as  a 
brave  though  unfortunate  man,  instead  of  being  shunned  as  an 
audacious  criminal,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  should  be 
subjected  to  some  signal  punishment,  which  should  serve  as  a 


240  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

lesson  to  future  invaders  of  unoffending  republics,  and  teach 
the  monarchs  of  the  Old  World  to  respect  the  liberties  of  the 
New.* 


*  This  was  no  after-thought  of  the  speaker — for  several  years  before,  in  his  journal 
of  January  28,  1864,  he  had  written  in  the  same  line,  though  not  anticipating  the  pre- 
cise end,  under  the  heading  of  "  What  the  Archduke  Maximilian  must  expect." 

"  While  the  Austrian  Archduke  Maximilian  is  getting  ready  to  embark  for  Mexi- 
co, in  order  to  take  possession  of  the  government  which  the  Emperor  of  France  has 
offered  him,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  what  is  his  chance  of  being  allowed  to  possess 
it  in  peace.  If  the  Archduke  has  any  friends  about  him  who  understand  the  restless 
character  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  the  impossibility  of  excluding  them 
as  settlers  from  a  contiguous  country  like  Mexico — with  vast  tracts  of  unoccupied 
land,  yet  possessing  a  rich  soil,  an  inviting  climate,  and  immense  mineral  resources — 
they  might  give  him  some  advice  which  would  make  him  consider  whether  the  crown 
now  offered  him  is  not  likely  to  be  a  crown  of  thorns.  Of  course,  the  government 
which  the  Archduke  Maximilian  will  seek  to  establish  in  Mexico  will  be  modelled 
after  the  Austrian  pattern  of  absolute,  rigid,  relentless  despotism.  He  cannot  and 
will  not  trust  the  native  Mexicans.  An  Austrian  cabinet  must  be  imported  from  Vi- 
enna ;  Austrian  officers  will  command  the  standing  army  ;  the  people  will  be  kept 
quiet  by  Austrian  bayonets  ;  and  dungeons  with  Austrian  keepers,  after  the  manner  of 
those  at  Olmutz  and  Spielberg,  will  be  prepared  for  the  reception  of  those  who  ven- 
ture to  criticise  the  new  order  of  things,  or  are  even  suspected  of  desiring  its  down- 
fall. Of  course,  such  a  government  will  be  hated — hated  because  of  its  severity  ; 
hated  because  it  is  administered  by  foreigners.  Let  such  a  government  lay  its  hand 
upon  a  resident  from  the  United  States  in  one  of  the  northern  provinces  of  Mexico, 
who,  unable  to  forget  the  habits  of  a  freeman  in  his  new  abode,  ventures  to  speak 
freely  of  the  acts  of  the  Austrian  ruler :  the  sympathies  of  our  people  would  be  instant- 
ly kindled  in  his  favor,  and,  if  but  a  movement  of  sedition  should  appear  among  the 
Mexicans,  thousands  of  our  countrymen  would  soon  show  themselves  on  the  other  side 
of  our  southwestern  frontier,  ready  to  inflame  the  sedition  into  a  formidable  insurrec- 
tion. We  will  suppose  that  our  Government  should  do  nothing  to  favor  any  such  re- 
volt, and  even  that  it  shall  earnestly  seek  to  restrain  our  citizens  from  taking  part  in 
it.  The  disposition  of  the  Government  will  have  no  effect  upon  the  popular  feeling. 
The  attempt  to  prevent  our  people  from  taking  part  in  a  rising  of  the  Mexicans  for 
such  a  cause  would  be  as  idle  as  to  endeavor  to  dam  the  current  of  a  stream  with  a 
net.  The  government  of  Maximilian  might  remonstrate,  our  own  Government 
might  do  its  best  to  satisfy  the  Austrian,  but  the  rush  of  our  countrymen  to  the  scene 
of  strife,  over  the  long  frontier  of  northern  Mexico,  would  go  on  as  steadily  as  the 
stream  of  the  Rio  Grande  toward  the  ocean.  It  might,  in  the  end,  be  difficult  for 
our  Government  to  maintain  anything  like  a  neutral  attitude  in  a  cause  like  this. 
Severities  practiced  on  American  residents  in  Mexico  might  call  for  energetic  remon- 
strances on  our  part,  to  which  the  government  of  that  country  might  not  think  that 


MEXICO  AND  MAXIMILIAN. 


241 


it  could  safely  listen,  and  then  the  popular  feeling  might  compel  our  executive  to 
draw  the  sword.  A  war  thus  begun  could  have  but  one  result :  the  occupation  and 
conquest  of  the  northern  provinces  of  Mexico — and  we  might  see  the  new  empire 
dwindling  to  a  mere  principality. 

But  the  case  we  have  supposed  implies  that  the  present  resistance  of  the  Mexicans 
to  the  usurpation  of  Maximilian  shall  first  have  been  subdued.  That  is  not  likely  to 
happen  soon.  The  friends  of  the  liberal  government  there  understand  very  well  the 
state  of  our  war  ;  they  foresee  already  the  approaching  submission  of  the  rebels,  and 
will,  by  every  effort  they  can  make,  prolong  their  own  war  till  ours  is  over.  Then 
they  expect  to  see  their  own  army  largely  augmented  by  trained  soldiers  from  ours. 
Thousands  of  adventurers,  inured  to  a  military  life,  not  yet  weary  of  it,  and  ambitious 
of  entering  a  new  field  of  distinction,  will  flock  to  Mexico  to  fight  another  battle  for 
liberty.  Already  in  our  army  there  are  men  who  look  confidently  to  that  event,  and 
do  not  mean  to  abandon  the  profession  of  arms  with  the  return  of  peace  while  such 
an  opportunity  invites  them  to  continue  in  it.  The  victors  of  Chattanooga  will  not 
fear  to  measure  swords  with  the  invaders  of  Mexico.  But  there  is  yet  another  class 
who  will  have  nothing  but  their  swords  left,  the  leaders  in  the  rebellion,  and  such  of 
their  followers  as  will  be  withheld  by  pride  and  disdain  from  taking  the  oath  of  al- 
legiance to  the  federal  Government,  coupled  with  the  conditions  on  which  a  pardon 
is  offered — such  men,  for  example,  as  Magruder  and  the  Texas  rangers.  These  men 
— such  of  them  as  have  served  in  Texas,  at  least — will  be  apt  to  espouse  the  cause 
of  their  neighbors  the  Mexicans,  whom  they  know,  and  in  whose  fate  they  will  natu- 
rally be  interested,  and  thus  it  may  happen  that  the  American  loyalist  and  the 
American  rebel  will  fight  side  by  side  in  the  war  for  Mexican  independence. 

It  seems,  therefore,  almost  certain  that  the  Archduke  Maximilian,  in  accepting  the 
crown  of  Mexico,  has  received  the  gift  of  aweary  and  disastrous  war,  with,  perhaps, 
an  inglorious  termination.  The  security  from  interference  by  the  United  States,  on 
which  he  depends,  whatever  course  our  Government  may  think  proper  to  take,  is  a 
fallacious  one.  It  often  happens  in  thunder-storms  that,  after  the  clouds  driven  by 
the  west  wind  have  left  the  sky  clear  overhead,  the  roll  of  the  thunder  is  yet  heard 
below  the  eastern  horizon.  So  it  may  be  with  the  tempest  of  war,  the  sound  of 
which  now  fills  our  land :  after  peace  has  returned  to  our  shores,  its  tumult  may  per- 
haps be  heard  and  its  lightnings  seen  to  glimmer  from  the  distant  fields  of  Mexico. 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE.4 


AN  honor  like  this  requires  from  me  a  particular  acknowl- 
edgment, which  yet  I  hardly  know  how  to  make  in  fitting 
terms.  Conferred  as  it  is  by  men  whom  I  so  much  value  and 
respect,  and  who  possess  in  so  high  a  degree  the  esteem  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  I  cannot  but  feel  that  it  would  amply  re- 
ward services  infinitely  greater  than  I  can  pretend  to  have 
rendered  to  any  cause.  What  I  have  done  in  applying  the 
principles  of  human  liberty  to  the  exchange  of  property  be- 
tween man  and  man  and  between  nation  and  nation,  has  been 
very  easy  to  do.  It  was  simply  to  listen  to  my  own  convic- 
tions without  any  attempt  to  reason  them  away,  and  to  follow 
whithersoever  they  might  lead  me.  In  this  manner  I  have 
been  saved  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  some  perplexity  and  be- 
wilderment, some  waste  of  ingenuity,  if  I  had  any  to  waste, 
and  perhaps  no  little  remorse. 

Another  circumstance  has  made  my  task  easy.  I  had  only 
to  walk  in  a  path  smoothed  and  lighted  by  some  of  the  best 
thinkers  of  the  age — impartial,  unprejudiced  men,  who  had  no 
object  in  view  but  the  simple  discovery  of  truth.  It  was  not 
difficult  to  walk  in  such  a  path.  Grand  and  noble  intellects 
held  their  torches  over  it,  and  I  could  not  well  step  astray 
with  such  guidance.  Besides,  I  had  only  to  follow  in  the  way 
which  the  world  is  going.  The  tendency  of  enlightened  pub- 

*  Speech  at  a  dinner  given  to  Mr.  Bryant,  in  New  York,  January  30,  1868. 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


243 


lie  opinion  in  all  countries  is  toward  the  freedom  of  trade. 
There  is  no  difficulty  in  swimming  with  the  current.  I  saw 
that  the  navigation  was  safe,  and  let  my  boat  float  with 
the  stream,  while  others  laboriously  tried  to  stem  it  or  lay 
moored  to  the  shore  wondering  which  way  they  ought  to 
go.  We  shall  have  them  all  with  us  yet,  Mr.  Chairman,  a 
merry  fleet  of  all  manner  of  craft,  bound  on  the  same  easy 
voyage.* 

Another  circumstance  which  has  made  the  task  of  free- 
trade  more  easy  is  the  involuntary  admissions  which  the  pro- 
tectionists make  of  the  fallacy  of  their  system.  A  capitalist  in 
New  England,  owning  cotton  or  woolen  mills,  however  great 
his  attachment  to  the  protective  system,  has  no  idea  of  em- 
ploying any  part  of  his  capital  in  raising  wheat  in  the  fields 
close  to  his  mills,  that  he  may  save  the  expense  to  him  and  his 
work-people  of  bringing  it  from  the  distant  West.  He  brings 
it  from  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  sends  back  his  fabrics  in 
exchange,  at  the  very  moment  that  he  is  procuring  laws  to  be 
passed  which  will  prevent  us,  the  consumers,  from  buying  iron 
and  cloth  and  paper  from  Europe,  that  we  may,  as  they  say, 
save  the  expense  of  freight.  When  we  make  a  new  acquisi- 
tion of  territory,  they  do  not  object  that  we  are  to  have  free- 
trade  with  the  new  region.  On  the  contrary,  they  rejoice  in 
a  wider  market.  This  they  did  when  Texas  was  taken  into 
the  Union.  They  made  no  opposition  to  the  acquisition  of 
California  on  the  ground  that  all  revenue  laws  which  shut  out 
the  trade  of  that  wide  region  would  now  be  repealed.  Wnen 
we  talk  of  annexing  Canada,  they  do  not  object  that  we  and 

*  Mr.  Bryant  was  among  the  earliest,  as  he  was  always  the  most  persistent 
and  hopeful,  of  the  advocates  of  free-trade  in  the  intercourse  of  nations.  In  his 
journal  and  in  his  speeches  he  never  refrained  from  agitating  the  topic,  beginning 
as  far  back  as  1828,  and  not  ceasing  up  to  the  last  month  of  his  life  in  1878 — fifty 
years  of  championship.  For  four  of  those  years  he  was  President  of  the  Free-Trade 
League  of  New  York  ;  and,  though  often  disappointed  in  his  expectation  of  favora- 
ble legislative  action,  his  confidence  in  the  ultimate  success  of  his  cause  never  abated. 
The  few  selections  from  his  speeches  here  given  are  made  so  as  to  avoid  repetition  as 
far  as  possible. 


244  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  Canadians  will  then  be  no  longer  independent  of  each 
other. 

In  this  they  are  in  the  right ;  in  this  they  tacitly  admit  the 
advantage  of  free-trade.  Whatever  other  objection  may  be 
made  to  the  acquisition  of  new  territory,  the  enlargement  of 
our  borders  by  the  addition  of  new  and  extensive  provinces 
is  a  great  commercial  and  industrial  advantage,  because  it 
makes  the  exchange  of  commodities  between  them  and  us  per- 
fectly free. 

Yet  there  is  a  certain  plausibility  in  what  the  protection- 
ists say  when  they  talk  of  home  industry  and  a  home  market 
— a  plausibility  which  misleads  many  worthy  and  otherwise 
sensible  people — sensible  in  all  other  respects,  and  whom  as 
men  I  admire  and  honor.  There  are  clever  men  among  them, 
who  bring  to  their  side  of  the  question  a  great  array  of  facts, 
many  of  which,  however,  have  no  real  bearing  upon  its  solu- 
tion. There  is  a  plausibility,  too,  in  the  idea  that  the  sun 
makes  a  daily  circuit  around  the  earth,  and,  if  there  were  any 
private  interests  to  be  promoted  by  maintaining  it,  we  should 
have  thousands  believing  that  the  earth  stands  still  while  the 
sun  travels  round  it.  "  See  for  yourself,"  they  would  say. 
"  Will  you  not  believe  the  evidence  of  your  own  senses  ?  The 
sun  comes  up  in  the  east  every  day  before  your  eyes,  stands 
over  your  head  at  noon,  and  goes  down  in  the  afternoon  in 
the  west.  Why,  you  admit  the  fact  when  you  say  the  sun 
rises,  the  sun  sets,  the  sun  is  up,  the  sun  is  down.  What  a 
fool  was  Galileo,  what  nonsense  is  the  system  of  Copernicus, 
what  trash  was  written  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton !  " 

I  remember  a  case  in  point — an  anecdote  which  I  once 
heard  in  Scotland.  A  writer  to  the  signet — that  is  to  say,  an 
attorney — named  Moll,  who  knew  very  little,  except  what  re- 
lated to  the  drawing  up  of  law-papers,  once  heard  a  lecture  on 
astronomy,  in  which  some  illustrations  were  given  of  the  daily 
revolution  of  the  earth  on  its  axis.  The  attorney  was  per- 
plexed and  bewildered  by  this  philosophy,  which  was  so  new  to 
him,  and  one  day,  his  thoughts  frequently  recurring  to  the 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


245 


subject,  he  looked  up  from  his  law-papers  and  said :  "  The 
young  mon  says  the  warld  turns  roond.  It's  vera  extraordin- 
ar'.  I've  lived  in  this  place  sax-and-thretty  years,  and  that 
grass-plot  presarves  the  same  relative  poseetion  to  the  house 
that  it  had  sax-and-thretty  years  sin' ;  and  yet  the  young  mon 
says  the  warld  turns  roond.  It's  vera  extraordinar'."  Here  was 
a  man  who  was  not  to  be  taken  in  by  this  nonsense  about  the 
earth  revolving  on  its  axis ;  and,  if  there  were  any  real  or  im- 
aginary pecuniary  advantage  to  be  gained  by  denying  it,  Mr. 
Moll  would  have  a  whole  army  of  his  way  of  thinking,  many 
of  them  far  wiser  and  better  informed  in  other  respects  than  he. 

Perhaps,  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  you  will  allow  me 
to  make  use  of  another  familiar  illustration.  You  have  heard 
of  a  man  attempting  to  lift  himself  from  the  ground  by  the 
waistband  of  his  pantaloons.  Now,  if  anything  were  to  be 
gained  by  it,  a  very  respectable  a  priori  argument  might  be 
made  in  favor  of  the  possibility  of  the  feat.  One  might  say : 
"  You  can  lift  two  hundred  pounds ;  your  weight  is  but  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty.  A  power  of  gravitation  equal  to  one  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds  holds  you  down  to  the  earth.  You  have  only 
to  apply  a  counteracting  force  a  little  greater  than  this  and  you 
will  be  lifted  into  the  air.  Take  hold  of  your  waistband,  there- 
fore, with  both  hands  and  pull  vigorously.  If  you  do  not  lift 
yourself  up  at  the  first  trial  you  must  pull  harder."  All  that 
might  sound  very  plausible  to  one  who  had  no  experience  to 
guide  him. 

This  country  has  been  persuaded  to  attempt  the  feat  of 
lifting  itself  from  the  ground  by  the  waistband  for  nearly  half 
a  century,  with  occasional  short  relaxations  of  the  efforts, 
prompted  by  a  return  of  common  sense.  When  the  first  pull 
was  made  and  was  ineffectual,  we  were  told  to  try  another, 
and  then  another  still  more  vigorous,  and  another  and  an- 
other ;  and  now  what  do  we  see  ?  The  garment,  of  which  the 
waistband  forms  a  part,  is  torn  to  shreds  and  tatters,  present- 
ing what  Pope,  alluding  to  a  similar  accident,  somewhere  calls 
a  "  dishonest  sight,"  mortifying  to  the  pride  of  philosophy. 


246  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

It  is  most  true  that  a  man  can  be  raised  from  the  ground 
by  the  waistband ;  but  he  cannot  do  the  feat  himself — another 
must  perform  the  office.  The  force  must  come  from  without. 
One  strong  man  may  raise  another  in  this  way,  and  be  raised 
by  him  in  turn.  In  this  case  there  is  an  interchange  of  good 
offices — freedom  of  trade.  No  man,  even  with  the  strength  of 
Samson,  can  go  into  a  room  by  himself  and  endeavor  to  per- 
form the  feat  alone,  without  coming  forth  from  the  undertak- 
ing in  rags,  his  nether  garment  full  of  ghastly  rents,  inviting 
the  entrance  of  the  January  wind.  So  no  nation  can  enrich  it- 
self by  excluding  foreign  commerce :  the  more  perfect  it 
makes  the  exclusion,  the  more  certain  it  is  to  impoverish  it- 
self. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen :  There  is  a  great  law  im- 
posed upon  us  by  the  necessities  of  our  condition  as  members 
of  human  society,  the  law  of  mutual  succor,  the  interchange 
of  benefits  and  advantages,  the  law  of  God  and  nature,  com- 
manding us  to  be  useful  to  each  other.  It  is  the  law  of  the 
household,  it  is  the  law  of  the  neighborhood,  it  is  the  law  of 
different  provinces  included  under  the  same  government,  and 
well  would  it  be  for  mankind  if  it  were  in  an  equal  degree  rec- 
ognized as  a  law  to  be  sacredly  regarded  by  the  great  commu- 
nity of  nations  in  their  intercourse  with  each  other.  Were  that 
law  to  be  repealed,  the  social  state  would  loose  its  cohesion 
and  fall  in  pieces.  There  is  not  a  pathway  across  the  fields, 
nor  a  highroad,  nor  a  guide-post  at  a  turn  of  the  way,  nor  a 
railway  from  city  to  city  or  from  State  to  State,  nor  a  sail 
upon  the  ocean,  which  is  not  an  illustration  of  this  law.  It  is 
proclaimed  in  the  shriek  of  the  locomotive.  It  is  murmured 
in  the  ripple  of  waters  divided  by  the  prow  of  the  steamer. 
The  nation  by  which  it  is  disregarded,  or  which  endeavors  to 
obstruct  it  by  artificial  barriers  against  the  free  intercourse  of 
its  citizens  with  those  of  other  countries,  revolts  against  the 
order  of  nature  and  strikes  at  its  own  prosperity. 

THE  cause,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen,  to  which  this 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


247 


toast  refers  needs  no  eulogy  of  mine.  I  need  not  endeavor  to 
show  that  it  is  a  good  cause — the  cause  of  the  great  mass  of 
mankind,  the  cause  of  the  few  as  well  as  of  the  many ;  of  those 
who  buy  and  those  who  sell,  of  those  who  produce  and  those 
who  consume.  It  contemplates  the  advantage  of  the  manufac- 
turer, if  he  only  knew  it,  as  much  as  of  those  who  purchase 
his  wares.  And  there  are  some  among  the  manufacturers 
who  do  know  this — wise,  enlightened,  impartial-minded  men, 
who  do  not  separate  even  in  thought  their  own  individual  well- 
being  from  the  largest  liberty  of  trade.  There  are  such  at 
this  table.  As  I  speak,  your  eyes  are  naturally  directed  to 
Mr.  Atkinson,  of  Massachusetts. 

But  what  I  wish  to  say  is  that  the  cause  is  gathering 
strength  and  making  progress  toward  an  early  and  glorious 
triumph.  To  my  mind  it  is  clear  that  there  never  has  been  a 
time,  since  the  Revolution  in  which  our  republic  had  its  birth, 
so  favorable  to  the  general  acceptance  of  the  principles  of  free- 
trade  as  the  present.  This  is  owing  to  various  causes. 

Until  lately  there  were  strong  party  prejudices  arrayed 
against  our  cause.  The  great  Whig  party,  intelligent  and  pow- 
erful, adopted  in  its  day  the  delusion  of  protection.  With 
party  spirit  it  is  impossible  to  reason.  Those  who  made  a  point, 
as  most  men  do,  of  following  the  lead  of  their  party  were  not 
to  be  convinced.  That  hindrance  to  the  spread  of  enlightened 
opinions  on  this  subject  is  now  removed.  No  man  is  now 
withheld  by  mere  party  considerations  from  listening  candidly 
to  the  arguments  for  commercial  freedom.  Be  he  Republican 
or  be  he  Democrat,  he  finds  men  in  his  own  party  who  take 
the  boldest  ground  for  revenue  reform,  and  who  set  him  a 
worthy  example. 

There  were  formerly  men  of  great  talent  and  influence  in 
political  life,  with  a  train  of  devoted  followers,  who  gave  all 
the  aid  of  their  eloquence  and  the  weight  of  their  character  to 
the  policy  of  restrictions  on  trade  for  the  benefit  of  the  mill- 
owners.  Henry  Clay,  a  man  of  chivalrous  and  generous  na- 
ture, of  fascinating  manners  and  great  powers  of  persuasion, 


248  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

gave  a  name  to  this  policy,  of  which  he  was  the  champion, 
and  called  it  the  American  system.  Webster,  at  one  time  the 
able  advocate  of  free-trade,  went  over  to  the  same  side  with 
all  the  fame  of  his  great  talents.  These  were  Whigs,  but  the 
eminent  statesmen  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  North,  such 
as  Van  Buren  and  Silas  Wright,  never  called  themselves  friends 
of  free-trade,  and  I  doubt  whether  they  ever  took  the  pains  to 
master  the  question.  Thus  an  immense  personal  influence, 
aside  from  all  considerations  of  interest,  was  exerted  in  favor 
of  the  policy  of  protection.  That  state  of  things  no  longer  ex- 
ists.  The  public  men  who  have  succeeded  to  the  opinions  of 
these  great  leaders  have  not  succeeded  to  their  standing  in 
the  public  estimation  nor  to  their  power  over  public  opinion. 
A  generation  is  rising  up  who  never  knew  Henry  Clay,  and 
who  will  not  adopt  his  errors  merely  because  they  were  his. 

Another  reason  for  the  speedy  triumph  of  free-trade  doc- 
trines is  that  the  restrictive  policy  has  been  tried  and  found 
mischievous.  The  drug  has  been  given  to  the  patient  in  what 
the  doctors  call  herculean  doses,  and  the  patient  is  frightfully 
nauseated.  Under  the  present  tariff  our  shipping,  once  the 
glory  of  the  nation,  has  disappeared  from  the  high  seas.  Un- 
der the  malignant  effect  of  the  same  policy,  various  branches 
of  industry,  once  flourishing,  have  been  annihilated.  The 
same  cause  has  made  all  the  necessaries  of  life  dear.  The 
laboring  man  and  the  journeyman  mechanic,  once  living 
comfortably,  and  the  farmer,  once  prosperous,  find  themselves 
at  their  wits'  end  to  provide  for  their  families,  and  ask  with 
astonishment  what  is  the  cause.  It  is  our  office  to  inform 
them. 

And  this  brings  me  to  another  reason  for  saying  that  the 
cause  of  free-trade  is  sure  to  win  a  speedy  triumph.  Hith- 
erto it  has  been  only  the  partisans  of  protection  that  have 
combined  for  the  support  of  their  opinions.  They  have  given 
themselves  the  full  benefit  of  the  maxim,  "  In  union  there  is 
strength."  It  is  now  our  policy  to  associate  for  the  defence 
of  the  masses  against  the  monopolists.  And  this  we  have 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


249 


done.  We  have  established  the  Free-Trade  League  of  the 
city  of  New  York,  and  other  leagues  with  the  same  object 
have  been  founded  in  other  cities.  We  have  circulated  tracts, 
we  have  sent  forth  missionaries,  able  and  eloquent  men,  to  ex- 
pound the  principles  of  a  wise  economy  as  applied  to  the  laws 
regulating  our  intercourse  with  foreign  nations.  Wherever 
they  have  gone  they  have  carried  knowledge  and  conviction, 
and  to  this  cause  a  large  part  of  our  success  in  the  late  elec- 
tions is  no  doubt  owing.  I  see  here  a  gentleman  who,  with  a 
disinterested  activity  and  a  generous  zeal,  devotes  his  whole 
time  to  the  work  of  making  these  means  efficacious  in  form- 
ing public  opinion.  When  I  mention  the  name  of  Mahlon 
Sands,  I  do  it  that  you  may  applaud  him  with  the  heartiness  he 
deserves.  I  see,  also,  a  gentleman  with  a  military  title,  who, 
as  a  gallant  volunteer,  has  won  in  these  fields  laurels  that  will 
require  no  watering  to  remain  green.  Need  I  mention  the 
name  of  Brinkerhoff?  The  Free-Trade  League  has  done 
much,  but,  if  its  revenues  had  been  ten  times  as  great — which 
they  deserve  to  be,  and  I  hope  will  yet  become — it  would  have 
done  ten  times  the  good  it  has  accomplished. 

Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  :  He  who  framed  the  uni- 
verse gave  to  different  regions  of  the  globe  different  climates, 
vielding  different  productions  for  the  use  of  man.  He  peo- 
pled them  with  different  races  of  mankind,  varying  from  each 
other  in  their  aptitudes  for  the  useful  and  ornamental  arts  of  life. 
He  gave  them  the  skill  to  invent  and  construct  rapid  modes  of 
conveyance  across  the  land  and  across  the  deep  from  latitude 
to  latitude,  from  realm  to  realm,  and  from  continent  to  conti- 
nent, and  said  to  them  :  "  Impart  to  each  other  what  you  can 
best  produce  ;  "  in  other  words,  "  to  communicate,  forget  not " 
— words  which  you  will  find  in  an  ancient  book  belonging  to 
the  sacred  literature  of  Palestine.  Such  was  the  order  He  es- 
tablished, the  order  of  nature,  and  by  His  help,  and  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  Free-Trade  League  and  its  sister 
associations,  and  by  means  of  a  good  understanding  with  all 
who  think  as  we  do,  we  will  attack  and  overthrow,  and  trample 


250  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

to  fragments,  and  utterly  destroy,  all  the  institutions  and  in- 
ventions of  man  which  have  for  their  object  to  obstruct  and 
thwart  the  natural  workings  of  this  beneficent  system  of 
Providence.  Let  me,  therefore,  if  the  courtesy  of  the  presi- 
dent will  so  far  allow  me,  propose  as  a  toast  the  Free-Trade 
League  of  the  City  of  New  York,  and  its  sister  leagues  in 
other  cities.  I  propose  that  we  do  honor  to  the  toast  with 
three  cheers  and  a  tiger.* 

I  HAVE  little  to  say  to  this  large  and  most  respectful  assem- 
blage, save  to  urge  upon  their  attention  the  claims  which  my 
younger  friends  who  are  most  active  in  the  cause  of  revenue 
reform  have  upon  their  sympathy,  their  respect,  and  their 
zealous  co-operation. 

I  know  them  to  be  actuated  by  the  purest  motives  of  pub- 
lic spirit.  They  give  their  thoughts  and  their  exertions  to 
the  cause  of  this  important  reform,  with  all  the  generous  ardor 
and  noble  enthusiasm  of  their  time  of  life.  They  are  deeply 
convinced  that  liberal  and  friendly  regulations  respecting  the 
trade  between  one  region  of  the  earth  and  the  others,  putting 
the  least  restraint  that  may  be  upon  the  exchange  of  benefits 
between  man  and  man,  are  dictated  by  the  soundest  policy,  and 
the  highest  regard  to  the  general  good.  To  this  conviction 
they  add  what  is  important  to  give  them  courage  and  persever- 
ance— the  sanguine  hope  that  they  shall  succeed  in  bringing 
their  countrymen,  the  large  majority  at  least,  to  their  way  of 
thinking  as  soon  as  they  have  the  means  of  forming  an  impar- 
tial judgment.  In  this  hope  I  fully  agree  with  them.  I  believe 
the  days  of  what  the  mill-owners  call  protection  are  numbered, 
and  that  they  are  few.  I  believe  that  the  delusive  doctrine 
that  a  village  may  make  itself  richer  by  refusing  to  trade  with 
a  neighboring  village,  a  country  with  an  adjoining  country, 


*  Remarks  at  the  Free-Trade  Dinner  at  Delmonico's,  in  New  York,  on  the  28th 
of  November,  1870.  Mr.  Bryant  was  called  upon  to  answer  the  toast  "  The  Cause 
of  Free-Trade." 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE.  2$  I 

a  state  with  a  state — as,  for  example,  New  Jersey  with  New 
York,  or  a  people  under  one  government  with  another,  as 
the  United  States  with  Canada  or  with  the  countries  of  Eu- 
rope— is  assuredly  destined,  so  far  as  this  country  is  concerned, 
soon  to  perish  and  be  swept  away,  along  with  the  other  old 
rubbish  of  false  opinions  which  have  wrought  mischief  in  the 
world  for  a  time,  as  exploded  and  cast  aside. 

When  that  time  shall  arrive,  and  we  shall  be  delivered  from 
the  yoke  of  the  monopolists,  which  is  now  so  heavy  on  our 
necks,  great  and  well-deserved  will  be  the  praise  awarded  to 
the  men  at  whose  instance  and  procurement  this  meeting  has 
been  called.  They  will  have  the  credit  of  boldly  attacking 
the  conspiracy  of  monopolists,  the  drilled  phalanx  of  protec- 
tion, at  the  time  when  monopoly  was  most  pampered,  over- 
grown and  formidable,  and  putting  it  to  death  by  a  speedier 
process  than  natural  decay. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  not  a  mail  which  comes  to  the  office 
of  the  "  Evening  Post "  which  does  not  bring  some  testimony 
to  the  efficacy  of  the  means  used  by  the  young  men  of  this  city 
to  enlighten  public  opinion  in  regard  to  the  mischiefs  of  protec- 
tion. A  year  since,  or  thereabouts,  there  were  hardly  half  a 
dozen  newspapers  in  the  country  that  discussed  the  revenue 
question  in  the  interest  of  liberty  and  the  people.  Now  you 
may  count  them  by  scores,  perhaps  I  should  say  by  hundreds. 
Where  they  formerly  spoke  with  caution  and  vaguely,  they  now 
speak  with  boldness  and  decision.  A  year  since,  a  meeting 
held  in  favor  of  revenue  reform  was  a  strange  and  rare  thing. 
Now  there  are  no  meetings  called  for  a  public  object  which 
are  so  numerous.  A  year  ago  it  was  difficult  to  find  a  member 
of  Congress  who  would  publicly  say  that  he  doubted  the 
policy  and  wisdom  of  protective  duties.  Since  that  time  the 
members  have  been  at  home,  among  their  constituents,  who 
have  listened  to  lecturers  sent  from  this  city,  and  read  tracts 
issued  here.  Many  of  them  have  gone  back  to  Washington 
with  their  impressions  of  what  the  people  desire  considerably 
modified.  In  short,  there  has  been  a  great  and  striking 

VOL.   II.— 17 


252 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


change ;  not  great  enough,  perhaps,  to  allow  us  to  expect  any 
truly  liberal  measure  from  Congress  at  its  present  session,  but 
great  enough  to  encourage  still  more  strenuous  exertions. 

Mr.  President,  we  must  follow  up  with  vigor  the  advan- 
tage we  have  gained,  and  when  the  people  speak,  Congress 
must  and  shall  give  way. 

I  remember  that,  when  in  the  time  of  the  famous  corn-law 
agitation  in  England,  an  agitation  for  cheap  bread — and  our 
agitation  is  for  cheap  iron,  cheap  fuel,  and  cheap  clothing — I 
heard  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Fox  discuss  the  question  of  free- 
trade  in  corn  before  an  immense  assemblage  crowded  into 
Drury  Lane  Theatre.  Fox  insisted  that  the  only  method  to 
move  the  British  Ministry  with  Peel  at  its  head  was  to  move 
the  people.  He  quoted  the  old  rhyme  : 

"  When  the  wind  blows,  then  the  mill  goes  ; 
When  the  wind  drops,  then  the  mill  stops." 

And  he  parodied  it  thus : 

"  When  the  League  blows,  then  the  Peel  goes ; 
When  the  League  stops,  then  the  Peel  drops." 

The  League  followed  his  advice  and  blew  vigorously,  and  Peel 
brought  in  a  bill  to  repeal  the  restrictions  on  the  trade  in 
breadstuffs,  and  England  had  cheap  bread. 

Mr.  President,  we  must  get  up  a  spanking  breeze  from  the 
right  quarter  in  this  country,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  Con- 
gress will  obey  its  impulse,  and  we  shall  again  have  cheap  iron, 
cheap  fuel,  and  cheap  clothing.  During  the  late  civil  war, 
public  opinion  went  sadly  back  on  the  question  of  protection ; 
while  we  had  a  worse  tariff  of  duties  than  had  ever  before  been 
inflicted  on  the  country,  yet  we  did  not  dare  to  quarrel  with 
it,  inasmuch  as  we  had  more  important  controversies  on  hand. 

It  went  back  then,  but  it  is  recovering  its  healthy  tone, 
and  now,  since  the  question  of  protection  is  made  the  grave 
question  of  the  day,  it  is  coming  right.* 

*  From  a  speech  at  a  public  meeting  of  the  New  York  Free-Trade  League. 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE.  25.3 

I  AM  glad  to  see  this  concourse.  It  is  a  worthy  occasion 
which  has  called  us  together :  the  cause  of  the  great  mass  of 
our  population,  the  cause  of  human  liberty,  the  cause  of  national 
prosperity,  the  cause  of  the  useful  arts,  the  cause  of  peace  and 
good-will  between  nation  and  nation.  All  these  are  implied 
in  the  freedom  of  exchanges.  We  talk  of  free  labor,  but  what 
is  free  labor  if  we  are  not  permitted  a  free  exchange  of  the 
fruits  of  our  labor  ?  One  man  comes  to  another  and  says  to 
him,  "  You  shall  work  only  when  and  where  I  direct  you." 
That  is  naked  slavery ;  it  is  justly  detested,  and  we  get  rid  of 
it  as  soon  as  we  can  ;  but,  under  our  present  commercial  sys- 
tem, a  set  of  men  come  to  us  and  say,  "  Well,  you  have  got  the 
products  of  your  labor  in  a  shape  proper  for  sending  them  to 
market ;  now  you  shall  only  sell  them  where  we  direct,  and 
for  prices  which  we  dictate,  and,  if  you  want  goods  for  them, 
you  shall  take  the  goods  of  us,  and  at  our  prices."  That  is  the 
sum  and  substance  of  the  protective  system,  the  plain  English, 
the  long  and  short,  the  proper  interpretation  of  the  laws 
which  the  protectionists  have  caused  to  be  enacted  for  us  to 
live  under. 

How  much  better  is  that  system  than  the  one  which  denies 
us  leave  to  work  where  and  when  we  please?  The  same  prin- 
ciple of  despotism  is  the  root  of  both  ;  they  are  both  shoots 
from  the  same  baleful  stock. 

But  they  who  are  guilty  of  this  usurpation  of  our  rights 
tell  us,  when  we  complain  that  we  are  hired  to  grumble,  that 
we  are  paid  in  British  gold.  My  friends,  were  you  paid  to 
come  hither  to-night  ?  Have  you  British  gold  in  your  pock- 
ets ?  Did  you  take  your  wages  at  the  door  when  you  entered, 
or  are  you  to  be  paid  when  you  go  out  ?  A  working-man 
complains  that,  under  the  present  tariff,  the  necessaries  of  life 
have  become  so  dear  that  he  is  at  his  wits'  end  to  subsist.  "Ah," 
is  the  answer,  "  you  have  been  receiving  British  gold."  An  old 
man  who  thought  that  he  had  laid  by  something  to  subsist  on 
complains  that,  within  a  few  years  past,  prices  under  our  sys- 


254  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

tern  of  direct  and  indirect  taxation  have  become  so  high  that 
he  is  starving.  British  gold,  British  gold,  say  the  protection- 
ists for  want  of  a  better  answer.  Now  I  bring  no  railing  accu- 
sation against  those  who  make  this  charge.  I  might  retort  by 
saying  that  those  who  have  imposed  upon  the  country  a  sys- 
tem which  has  destroyed  our  shipping  interest,  and  made 
American  products  too  dear  to  be  exported — a  condition  of 
things  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  British  trade — are  far 
more  likely  to  be  corrupted  by  British  gold  than  any  other 
class  of  men  in  this  country,  but  I  do  not  say  that.  They  are 
doubtless  sincere  in  their  attachment  to  what  they  call  the 
principle  of  protection.  It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  persuade 
ourselves  that  what  seems  to  be  for  our  private  interest  is  also 
good  for  the  community  at  large.  I  will  say,  further,  that 
there  are  men  who  have  fallen  into  .this  delusion  of  the  protect- 
ive policy  whom  I  esteem  and  honor,  and  whom  I  hope  yet 
to  see  converted  from  their  error.  But  let  us  put  this  charge 
of  being  hired  by  British  gold  to  an  easy  test. 

You  may  have  before  you  on  this  platform  to-night  an  en- 
lightened Massachusetts  manufacturer  who  always  speaks  ably 
and  nobly  in  defence  of  freedom  and  trade,  with  large  knowl- 
edge, and  powerful  logic.  He  is  one  of  the  mill-owners  who 
do  not  wish  to  separate  their  fortunes  from  those  of  the  rest 
of  his  countrymen ;  he  is  satisfied  with  profits  which  he  can 
make  without  oppressing  his  fellow-men.  Is  that  man  a  re- 
ceiver of  British  gold  ?  Let  me  tell  these  calumniators  that 
not  all  the  profits  of  all  the  mills  in  Great  Britain,  whether 
moved  by  steam  or  by  water,  whether  sending  out  tissues  of 
wool  or  cotton,  or  pigs  and  bars  of  metal,  were  these  profits 
laid  at  his  feet  in  ignots  of  gold,  or  in  gold  coined  into  sover- 
eigns, could  bribe  him  to  say  what  is  not  his  honest  thought, 
or  to  be  false  to  the  convictions  of  his  conscience. 

The  other  day  Henry  Ward  Beecher  addressed  the  people 
of  Brooklyn  at  a  free-trade  meeting.  We  all  remember  how 
proud  we  were  of  this  man  when,  during  our  civil  war,  he 
went  to  England  in  order  to  enlighten  the  people  of  that  coun- 


FREEDOM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


255 


try  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  great  struggle  which  we 
were  making  to  preserve  the  Union.  He  went,  fearless,  im- 
perturbable, eloquent,  master  of  his  subject,  took  John  Bull 
by  the  beard,  tamed  one  noisy  mob  after  another,  and  made 
them  listen  to  the  brave  and  true  words  he  uttered.  You  all 
remember  that  there  was  no  praise  which  we  were  not  then 
willing  to  bestow  upon  his  courage,  his  self-possession,  his  dis- 
interested defence  of  his  country.  Was  he  then  a  receiver  of 
British  gold  for  thus  boldly  speaking  in  behalf  of  his  country  ? 
Just  as  much  as  he  is  a  receiver  of  British  gold  for  speaking  in 
favor  of  those  who  are  crushed  to  the  earth  by  our  false  com- 
mercial system. 

Within  a  few  days  since,  William  Lloyd  Garrison  addressed 
a  Boston  audience  in  favor  of  the  freedom  of  exchanges.  You 
all  know  the  character  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison.  A  man 
who  gave  the  labors  of  his  life  to  a  war  against  slavery,  and 
who  expended  in  it  all  that  he  possessed.  When  at  last  the 
negro  race  was  emancipated,  he  was  penniless.  To  him  might 
be  applied  the  noble  line  of  Thompson : 

"  In  pure  majestic  poverty  revered." 

Is  that  man  a  receiver  of  British  gold  ?  Not  all  the  gold  dug 
from  the  mines  of  California  and  those  of  the  Ural  Mountains, 
though  to  these  were  added  all  the  diamonds  found  in  Brazil 
and  all  the  pearls  gathered  by  divers  on  the  floor  of  the  ocean 
in  the  regions  of  the  East,  could  tempt  that  man  to  espouse  a 
cause  which  did  not  seem  to  him  absolutely  just.  All  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  have  not  wealth  enough  to  buy  that 
man. 

In  1832  Henry  Clay,  then  a  Senator  of  the  United  States, 
and  till  then  a  zealous  protectionist,  rose  in  his  seat  to  oppose 
a  pure  free-trade  measure.  Mr.  Littell,  now  editor  of  the  "  Liv- 
ing Age  " — and  long  may  he  continue  so — a  life-long  friend  of 
free-trade,  framed  a  bill  proposing  gradually  to  abolish  every 
trace  of  protection  in  our  revenue  laws,  and  reduce  every  ex- 
isting duty  within  the  space  of  ten  years  to  twenty  per  cent 


256  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

on  the  value  of  the  commodities  imported.  Mr.  Clay  saw  that 
the  moment  was  come  to  abandon  the  protective  system, 
and  he  nobly  abandoned  it,  adopted  the  project  of  Mr.  Littell, 
and  it  was  carried  by  his  influence  through  both  Houses  of 
Congress.  Subsequently,  after  several  years,  he  defended  the 
bill,  and  denied  that  diminishing  the  duties  had  injured  the 
prosperity  of  the  country. 

I  honor  Mr.  Clay  for  his  magnanimity  in  proposing  that 
free-trade  measure  more  than  for  any  other  act  of  his  public 
life.  He  had  to  make  a  painful  sacrifice  of  the  pride  of  opin- 
ion, to  renounce  old  prejudices,  to  disappoint  attached  friends, 
to  admit  practically  that  the  protective  system  was  not  the 
proper  policy  for  our  country.  He  made  all  these  sacrifices, 
these  renunciations,  these  admissions  cheerfully  and  like  an 
honest  man.  Was  Henry  Clay  paid  by  British  gold  ?  Will 
the  detractors  to  whom  I  have  referred  say  as  much,  and  offer 
such  an  insult  to  his  memory  ?  Is  there  any  man  audacious 
enough  to  bespatter  his  monument  with  the  dirt  thrown  so 
freely  at  us  ?  The  time  has  come  to  follow  his  example.  The 
protective  system  will  be  a  cause  of  bitter  dissension  in  this 
country  as  long  as  it  is  allowed  to  exist.  Its  essential  element 
is  injustice,  partiality,  monopoly,  unequal  legislation,  and  it  can- 
not last.  It  makes  dear  provisions,  dear  garments,  dear  house- 
hold utensils  and  farming  implements,  dear  fuel,  dear  houses, 
and  high  rents.  It  lies  heavily  upon  us  after  we  get  into  our 
graves,  for  the  very  wood  of  which  our  coffins  are  made  is 
burdened  with  the  lumber  duty.* 

*  Mr.  Bryant's  address  at  a  mass-meeting  at  Cooper  Institute,  March  24,  1874. 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH/ 


I  SPEAK,  Mr.  President,  in  behalf  of  the  press.  To  the 
press  the  electric  telegraph  is  an  invention  of  immense  value. 
Charles  Lamb,  in  one  of  his  papers,  remarks  that  a  piece  of 
news,  which  when  it  left  Botany  Bay  was  true  to  the  letter, 
often  becomes  a  lie  before  it  reaches  England.  It  is  the  advan- 
tage of  the  telegraph  that  it  gives  you  the  news  before  circum- 
stances have  had  time  to  alter  it.  The  press  is  enabled  to  lay 
it  fresh  before  the  reader.  It  comes  to  him  like  a  steak  hot 
from  the  gridiron,  instead  of  being  cooled  and  made  flavorless 
by  a  slow  journey  from  a  distant  kitchen.  A  battle  is  fought 
three  thousand  miles  away,  and  we  have  the  news  while  they 
are  taking  the  wounded  to  the  hospital.  A  great  orator  rises 
in  the  British  Parliament,  and  we  read  his  words  almost  before 
the  cheers  of  his  friends  have  ceased.  An  earthquake  shakes 
San  Francisco,  and  we  have  the  news  before  the  people  who 
have  rushed  into  the  street  have  returned  to  their  houses.  I 
am  afraid  that  the  columns  of  the  daily  newspapers  would  now 
seem  flat,  dull,  and  stale  to  the  readers  were  it  not  for  the  com- 
munications of  the  telegraph. 

But,  while  the  telegraph  does  that  for  the  press,  the  press 
in  some  sort  returns  the  obligation.  Were  it  not  for  the  press, 
the  telegram,  being  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth,  would, 
from  the  moment  of  its  arrival,  begin  to  lose  something  of  its 

*  Remarks  at  a  dinner  given  to  Samuel  Breese  Morse,  December  29,  1868. 


258  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

authenticity.  Every  rumor  propagated  orally  at  last  becomes 
false.  Mr.  President,  you  are  familiar  with  the  personifica- 
tion of  Rumor  by  the  poets  of  antiquity — at  first  of  dwarfish 
size,  and  rapidly  enlarging  in  bulk  till  her  feet  sweep  the  earth 
and  her  head  is  among  the  clouds.  The  press  puts  Rumor 
into  a  strait-jacket,  swaddles  her  from  head  to  foot,  and  so 
restrains  her  growth.  It  transcribes  the  messages  of  the  tele- 
graph in  their  very  words,  and  thus  prevents  them  from  be- 
ing magnified  or  mutilated  into  lies.  It  protects  the  reputa- 
tion of  the  telegraph  for  veracity.  You  know,  Mr.  President, 
what  a  printer's  devil  is.  It  is  the  messenger  who  brings  to 
the  printer  his  copy — that  is  to  say,  matter  which  is  to  be  put 
into  type.  Some  petulant,  impatient  author,  I  suppose,  who 
was  negligent  in  furnishing  the  required  copy,  must  have 
given  him  that  name  ;  although  he  is  so  useful  that  he  is  en- 
titled to  be  called  the  printer's  angel,  the  original  word  for 
angel  and  messenger  being  the  same.  Our  illustrious  guest, 
Mr.  President,  has  taken  portions  of  the  great  electric  mass, 
which  in  its  concentrated  form  becomes  the  thunderbolt ;  he  has 
drawn  it  into  slender  threads,  and  every  one  of  these  becomes 
in  his  hands  an  obedient  messenger — a  printer's  devil,  carry- 
ing with  the  speed  of  a  sunbeam  volumes  of  copy  to  the  type- 
setter. 

In  the  "  Treatise  on  Bathos,"  Pope  quotes,  as  a  sample  of  ab- 
surdity not  to  be  surpassed,  a  passage  from  some  play,  I  think 
one  of  Nat.  Lee's,  expressing  the  modest  wish  of  a  lover : 

"Ye  gods,  annihilate  both  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy." 

But  see  what  changes  a  century  brings  forth.  What  was 
then  an  absurdity,  what  was  arrant  nonsense,  is  now  the  state- 
ment of  a  naked  fact.  Our  guest  has  annihilated  both  space 
and  time  in  the  transmission  of  intelligence.  The  breadth  of 
the  Atlantic,  with  all  its  waves,  is  as  nothing ;  and,  in  sending 
a  message  from  Europe  to  this  continent,  the  time,  as  com- 
puted by  the  clock,  is  some  six  hours  less  than  nothing. 


THE  ELECTRIC   TELEGRAPH. 


259 


There  is  one  view  of  this  great  invention  of  the  electric 
telegraph  which  impresses  me  with  awe.  Beside  us  at  this 
board,  along  with  the  illustrious  man  whom  we  are  met  to 
honor,  and  whose  name  will  go  down  to  the  latest  generations 
of  civilized  man,  sits  the  gentleman  to  whose  clear-sighted  per- 
severance and  to  whose  energy — an  energy  which  knew  no 
discouragement,  no  weariness,  no  pause — we  owe  it  that  the 
telegraph  has  been  laid  which  connects  the  Old  World  with 
the  New  through  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  My  imagination  goes 
down  to  the  chambers  of  the  middle  sea,  to  those  vast  depths 
where  repose  the  mystic  wire  on  beds  of  coral,  among  forests 
of  tangle,  or  on  the  bottom  of  the  dim  blue  gulfs  strewn  with 
the  bones  of  whales  and  sharks,  skeletons  of  drowned  men, 
and  ribs  and  masts  of  foundered  barks,  laden  with  wedges  of 
gold  never  to  be  coined,  and  pipes  of  the  choicest  vintages  of 
earth  never  to  be  tasted.  Through  these  watery  solitudes, 
among  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep,  the  abode  of  perpetual 
silence,  never  visited  by  living  human  presence  and  beyond 
the  sight  of  human  eye,  there  are  gliding  to  and  fro,  by  night 
and  by  day,  in  light  and  in  darkness,  in  calm  and  in  tem- 
pest, currents  of  human  thought  borne  by  the  electric  pulse 
which  obeys  the  bidding  of  man.  That  slender  wire  thrills 
with  the  hopes  and  fears  of  nations  ;  it  vibrates  to  every  emo- 
tion that  can  be  awakened  by  any  event  affecting  the  wel- 
fare of  the  human  race.  A  volume  of  contemporary  history 
passes  every  hour  of  the  day  from  one  continent  to  the  other. 
An  operator  on  the  continent  of  Europe  gently  touches  the 
keys  of  an  instrument  in  his  quiet  room,  a  message  is  shot 
with  the  swiftness  of  light  through  the  abysses  of  the  sea,  and 
before  his  hand  is  lifted  from  the  machine  the  story  of  revolts 
and  revolutions,  of  monarchs  dethroned  and  new  dynasties  set 
up  in  their  place,  of  battles  and  conquests  and  treaties  of  peace, 
of  great  statesmen  fallen  in  death,  lights  of  the  world  gone  out 
and  new  luminaries  glimmering  on  the  horizon,  is  written 
down  in  another  quiet  room  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe. 

Mr.  President,  I  see   in  the  circumstances  which  I  have 


26o  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

enumerated  a  new  proof  of  the  superiority  of  mind  to  matter, 
of  the  independent  existence  of  that  part  of  our  nature  which 
we  call  the  spirit,  when  it  can  thus  subdue,  enslave,  and  edu- 
cate the  subtilest,  the  most  active,  and  in  certain  of  its  manifes- 
tations the  most  intractable  and  terrible,  of  the  elements,  mak- 
ing it  in  our  hands  the  vehicle  of  thought,  and  compelling  it 
to  speak  every  language  of  the  civilized  world.  I  infer  the 
capacity  of  the  spirit  for  a  separate  state  of  being,  its  inde- 
structible essence  and  its  noble  destiny,  and  I  thank  the  great 
discoverer  whom  we  have  assembled  to  honor  for  this  confir- 
mation of  my  faith. 


THE  METROPOLITAN  ART  MUSEUM; 


WE  are  assembled  to  consider  the  subject  of  founding  in 
this  city  a  Museum  of  Art,  a  repository  of  the  productions  of 
artists  of  every  class,  which  shall  be  in  some  measure  worthy 
of  this  great  metropolis  and  of  the  wide  empire  of  which  New 
York  is  the  commercial  centre.  I  understand  that  no  rivalry 
with  any  other  project  is  contemplated,  no  competition,  save 
with  similar  institutions  in  other  countries,  and  then  only  such 
modest  competition  as  a  museum  in  its  infancy  may  aspire  to 
hold  with  those  which  were  founded  centuries  ago,  and  are 
enriched  with  the  additions  made  by  the  munificence  of  suc- 
cessive generations.  No  precise  method  of  reaching  this  re- 
sult has  been  determined  on,  but  the  object  of  the  present 
meeting  is  to  awaken  the  public,  so  far  as  our  proceedings  can 
influence  the  general  mind,  to  the  importance  of  taking  early 
and  effectual  measures  for  founding  such  a  museum  as  I  have 
described. 

Our  city  is  the  third  great  city  of  the  civilized  world. 
Our  Republic  has  already  taken  its  place  among  the  great 
powers  of  the  earth:  it  is  great  in  extent,  great  in  popu- 
lation, great  in  the  activity  and  enterprise  of  her  people.  It 
is  the  richest  nation  in  the  world,  if  paying  off  an  enormous 
national  debt  with  a  rapidity  unexampled  in  history  be  any 

*  An  address  delivered  at  a  meeting  in  the  Union  Club  House,  November,  23, 
1869. 


262  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

proof  of  riches ;  the  richest  in  the  world,  if  contented  submis- 
sion to  heavy  taxation  be  a  sign  of  wealth  ;  the  richest  in  the 
world,  if  quietly  to  allow  itself  to  be  annually  plundered  of 
immense  sums  by  men  who  seek  public  stations  for  their  indi- 
vidual profit  be  a  token  of  public  prosperity.  My  friends,  if  a 
tenth  part  of  what  is  every  year  stolen  from  us  in  this  way,  in 
the  city  where  we  live,  under  pretence  of  the  public  service, 
and  poured  profusely  into  the  coffers  of  political  rogues,  were 
expended  on  a  Museum  of  Art,  we  might  have,  deposited  in 
spacious  and  stately  buildings,  collections,  formed  of  works 
left  by  the  world's  greatest  artists,  which  would  be  the  pride 
of  our  country.  We  might  have  an  annual  revenue  which 
would  bring  to  the  Museum  every  stray  statue  and  picture  of 
merit  for  which  there  should  be  no  ready  sale  to  individuals, 
every  smaller  collection  in  the  country  which  its  owner  could 
no  longer  conveniently  keep,  every  noble  work  by  the  artists 
of  former  ages,  which,  by  any  casualty,  alter  long  remaining 
on  the  walls  of  some  ancient  building,  should  be  again  thrown 
upon  the  world. 

But  what  have  we  done — numerous  as  our  people  are,  and 
so  rich  as  to  be  contentedly  cheated  and  plundered — what  have 
we  done  toward  founding  such  a  repository?  We  have 
hardly  made  a  step  toward  it.  Yet  beyond  the  sea  there  is 
the  little  kingdom  of  Saxony,  with  an  area  even  less  than  that 
of  Massachusetts,  and  a  population  but  little  larger,  possess- 
ing a  Museum  of  the  Fine  Arts,  marvellously  rich,  which  no 
man  who  visits  the  continent  of  Europe  is  willing  to  own  that 
he  has  not  seen.  There  is  Spain,  a  third-rate  power  of  Eu- 
rope and  poor  besides,  with  a  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  at  her 
capital,  the  opulence  and  extent  of  which  absolutely  bewilder 
the  visitor.  I  will  not  speak  of  France  or  of  England,  con- 
quering nations,  which  have  gathered  their  treasures  of  art  in 
part  from  regions  overrun  by  their  armies ;  nor  yet  of  Italy, 
the  fortunate  inheritor  of  so  many  glorious  productions  of  her 
own  artists.  But  there  are  Holland  and  Belgium,  kingdoms 
almost  too  small  to  be  heeded  by  the  greater  powers  of  Eu- 


THE  METROPOLITAN  ART  MUSEUM.  263 

rope  in  the  consultations  which  decide  the  destinies  of  nations, 
and  these  little  kingdoms  have  their  public  collections  of  art, 
the  resort  of  admiring  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  civilized 
world. 

But  in  our  country,  when  the  owner  of  a  private  gallery  of 
art  desires  to  leave  his  treasures  where  they  can  be  seen  by 
the  public,  he  looks  in  vain  for  any  institution  to  which  he 
can  send  them.  A  public-spirited  cjtizen  desires  to  employ  a 
favorite  artist  upon  some  great  historical  picture ;  there  are 
no  walls  on  which  it  can  hang  in  public  sight.  A  large  collec- 
tion of  works  of  art,  made  at  great  cost  and  with  great  pains, 
gathered  perhaps  during  a  lifetime,  is  for  sale  in  Europe.  We 
may  find  here  men  willing  to  contribute  to  purchase  it,  but,  if 
it  should  be  brought  to  our  country,  there  is  no  edifice  here  to 
give  it  hospitality. 

In  1857,  during  a  visit  to  Spain,  I  found  in  Madrid  a  rich 
private  collection  of  pictures,  made  by  Medraza,  an  aged 
painter,  during  a  long  life,  and  at  a  period  when  frequent  so- 
cial and  political  changes  in  that  country  dismantled  many 
palaces  of  the  old  nobility  of  the  works  of  art  which  adorned 
them.  In  that  collection  were  many  pictures  by  the  illustri- 
ous elder  artists  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  Holland.  The  whole 
might  have  been  bought  for  half  its  value,  but,  if  it  had  been 
brought  over  to  our  country,  we  had  no  gallery  to  hold  it. 
The  same  year  I  stood  before  the  famous  Campana  collec- 
tion of  marbles  at  Rome,  which  was  then  waiting  for  a  pur- 
chaser— a  noble  collection,  busts  and  statues  of  the  ancient 
philosophers,  orators,  and  poets,  the  majestic  forms  of  Roman 
senators,  the  deities  of  ancient  mythology, 

"  The  fair  humanities  of  old  religion," 

but,  if  they  had  been  purchased  by  our  countrymen  and  landed 
here,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  leave  them  in  boxes,  just 
as  they  were  packed. 

Moreover,  we  require  an  extensive  public  gallery  to  con- 


264  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

tain  the  greater  works  of  our  own  painters  and  sculptors. 
The  American  soil  is  prolific  of  artists.  The  fine  arts  blossom 
not  only  in  the  populous  regions  of  our  country,  but  even  in 
its  solitary  places.  Go  where  you  will,  into  whatever  museum 
of  art  in  the  Old  World,  you  find  there  artists  from  the  New, 
contemplating  or  copying  the  masterpieces  of  art  which  they 
contain.  Our  artists  swarm  in  Italy.  When  I  was  last  at 
Rome,  two  years  since,  I  found  the  number  of  American  art- 
ists residing  there  as  two  to  one  compared  with  those  from 
the  British  Isles.  But  there  are  beginners  among  us  who  have 
not  the  means  of  resorting  to  distant  countries  for  that  instruc- 
tion in  art  which  is  derived  from  carefully  studying  works  of 
acknowledged  excellence.  For  these  a  gallery  is  needed  at 
home,  which  shall  vie  with  those  abroad,  if  not  in  the  multi- 
tude, yet  in  the  merit,  of  the  works  it  contains. 

Yet,  further,  it  is  unfortunate  for  our  artists,  our  painters 
especially,  that  they  too  often  find  their  genius  cramped  by  the 
narrow  space  in  which  it  is  constrained  to  exert  itself.  It  is 
like  a  bird  in  a  cage,  which  can  take  short  flights  only  from 
one  perch  to  another,  and  longs  to  stretch  its  wings  in  an  am- 
pler atmosphere.  Producing  works  for  private  dwellings, 
our  painters  are  for  the  most  part  obliged  to  confine  them- 
selves to  cabinet  pictures,  and  have  little  opportunity  for  that 
larger  treatment  of  important  subjects  which  a  greater  breadth 
of  canvas  would  allow  them,  and  by  which  the  higher  and 
nobler  triumphs  of  their  art  have  been  achieved. 

There  is  yet  another  view  of  the  subject,  and  a  most  impor- 
tant one.  When  I  consider,  my  friends,  the  prospect  which 
opens  before  this  great  mart  of  the  western  world,  I  am  moved 
by  feelings  which  I  feel  it  somewhat  difficult  clearly  to  define. 
The  growth  of  our  city  is  already  wonderfully  rapid  ;  it  is 
every  day  spreading  itself  into  the  surrounding  region  and 
overwhelming  it  like  an  inundation.  Now  that  our  great  rail- 
way has  been  laid  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  eastern 
Asia  and  western  Europe  will  shake  hands  over  our  Republic. 
New  York  will  be  the  mart  from  which  Europe  will  receive  a 


THE  METROPOLITAN  ART  MUSEUM.  265 

large  proportion  of  the  products  of  China,  and  will  become 
not  a  centre  of  commerce  only  for  the  New  World,  but  for 
that  region  which  is  to  Europe  the  most  remote  part  of  the 
Old.  A  new  impulse  will  be  given  to  the  growth  of  our  city, 
which  I  cannot  contemplate  without  an  emotion  akin  to  dis- 
may. Men  will  flock  in  greater  numbers  than  ever  before  to 
plant  themselves  on  a  spot  so  favorable  to  the  exchange  of 
commodities  between  distant  regions ;  and  here  will  be  an  ag- 
gregation of  human  life,  a  concentration  of  all  that  ennobles 
and  all  that  degrades  humanity,  on  a  scale  which  the  imagi- 
nation cannot  venture  to  measure.  To  great  cities  resort  not 
only  all  that  is  eminent  in  talent,  all  that  is  splendid  in  genius, 
and  all  that  is  active  in  philanthropy,  but  also  all  that  is  most 
dexterous  in  villany  and  all  that  is  most  foul  in  guilt.  It  is  in 
the  labyrinths  of  such  mighty  and  crowded  populations  that 
crime  finds  its  safest  lurking-places ;  it  is  there  that  vice 
spreads  its  most  seductive  and  fatal  snares,  and  sin  is  pampered, 
and  festers  and  spreads  its  contagion  in  the  greatest  security. 

My  friends,  it  is  important  that  we  should  encounter  the 
temptations  to  vice  in  this  great  and  too  rapidly  growing  capi- 
tal by  attractive  entertainments  of  an  innocent  and  improving 
character.  We  have  libraries  and  reading-rooms,  and  this  is 
well ;  we  have  also  spacious  halls  for  musical  entertainments, 
and  that  also  is  well;  but  there  are  times  when  we  do  not 
care  to  read  and  are  satiated  with  listening  to  sweet  sounds, 
and  when  we  more  willingly  contemplate  works  of  art.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  true  philanthropist  to  find  means  of  grati- 
fying this  preference.  We  must  be  beforehand  with  vice  in 
our  arrangements  for  all  that  gives  grace  and  cheerfulness  to 
society.  The  influence  of  works  of  art  is  wholesome,  enno- 
bling, instructive.  Besides  the  cultivation  of  the  sense  of 
beauty — in  other  words,  the  perception  of  order,  symmetry, 
proportion  of  parts,  which  is  of  near  kindred  to  the  moral 
sentiments — the  intelligent  contemplation  of  a  great  gallery  of 
works  of  art  is  a  lesson  in  history,  a  lesson  in  biography,  a  les- 
son in  the  antiquities  of  different  countries.  Half  our  knowl- 


266  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

edge  of  the  customs  and  modes  of  life  among  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Romans  is  derived  from  the  remains  of  ancient 
art. 

Let  it  be  remembered  to  the  honor  of  art  that,  if  it  has  ever 
been  perverted  to  the  purposes  of  vice,  it  has  only  been  at  the 
bidding  of  some  corrupt  court,  or  at  the  desire  of  some  opulent 
and  powerful  voluptuary  whose  word  was  law.  When  intend- 
ed for  the  general  eye,  no  such  stain  rests  on  the  works  of  art. 
Let  me  close  with  an  anecdote  of  the  influence  of  a  well-known 
work.  I  was  once  speaking  to  the  poet  Rogers  in  commen- 
dation of  the  painting  of  Ary  Scheffer,  entitled  "  Christ  the  Con- 
soler." "  I  have  an  engraving  of  it,"  he  answered,  "  hanging  at 
my  bedside,  where  it  meets  my  eye  every  morning."  The  aged 
poet,  over  whom  already  impended  the  shadow  that  shrouds 
the  entrance  to  the  next  world,  found  his  morning  medita- 
tions guided  by  that  work  to  the  Founder  of  our  religion. 


TRANSLATORS  OF  HOMER.* 


To  a  toast  made  up  of  quotations  from  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets  I  suppose  that  I  may  reply  in  the  vernacular,  which  all 
who  are  present,  I  hope,  understand,  even  when  spoken  as  im- 
perfectly as  I  speak  it. 

That  passable  verses  may  be  written  by  one  who  knows 
neither  Greek  nor  Latin  I  suppose  will  be  allowed.  The 
very  greatest  of  modern  poets,  Shakespeare,  was  said  by  the 
learned  Ben  Jonson  to  have  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek." 
Nay,  I  suppose  that  a  very  moderate  knowledge  of  Greek 
might  suffice  even  for  translating  Homer.  Pope,  the  most 
popular  of  his  translators,  is  thought  to  have  had  but  a  very 
slender  stock  of  Greek.  I  go  still  further,  and  assert  that  one 
very  good  translation  of  the  Iliad  was  made  without  knowing 
a  word  of  the  Greek  original.  The  eminent  Italian  poet,  Vin- 
cenzo  Monti,  author  of  the  grand  tragedy  of  "  Aristodemo," 
translated  the  Iliad  into  excellent  blank  verse  without  any 
knowledge  of  Greek.  An  epigram  was  made  to  be  inscribed 
under  his  portrait  in  these  words : 

"  Questi  &  Vincenzo  Monti,  Cavaliero, 
Gran  traduttor  de'  traduttor  "d  'Omero," 


*  From  a  speech  to  the  Williams  College  Alumni,  February  22,  1870. 
VOL.  II. — 1 8 


268  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

which,  if  you  please,  may  be  thus  translated  : 

"  This  knight  is  Vincenzo  Monti, 

An  author  highly  rated, 
By  whom  the  translators  of  Homer 
So  cleverly  were  translated." 

So  you  see,  Mr.  President,  and  you  gentlemen  who  pre- 
pared this  toast,  and  you  learned  directors  of  the  studies  of 
colleges,  that  Homer  can  be  translated  without  knowing  even 
the  Greek  alphabet. 

Let  me  call  the  attention  of  the  company  for  a  moment  to 
the  great  marvel  of  the  origin  of  the  Homeric  poems,  at  a  pe- 
riod before  letters  were  of  general  use  in  Greece,  save,  per- 
haps, in  public  inscriptions.  His  poems,  when  produced,  could 
not  have  been  committed  to  manuscript.  We  find  nowhere  in 
them  any  mention  of  the  art  of  the  scribe,  of  the  pen  or  the 
papyrus,  of  the  stylus  or  the  tablet,  of  the  graving-tool  or  the 
inscribed  rock,  of  the  painted  or  the  chiselled  alphabet,  or  any 
other  even  remote  hint  of  a  written  literature,  though  every 
other  art  of  life  then  known  helped  to  furnish  forth  the  afflu- 
ent imagery  of  his  poems.  He  lived  while  all  history  was 
oral  tradition.  His  poems — for  I  hold  to  one  Homer  as  I  hold 
to  one  sun  in  the  firmament — were  engraved  on  his  own  iron 
memory  and  that  of  the  minstrels  who  inherited  and  repeated 
his  poems  in  public  assemblies.  Yet  in  that  remote  and  im- 
perfectly civilized  age,  while  all  the  literature  that  existed  was 
in  men's  heads  and  on  their  tongues,  there  was  produced  a 
work  which,  in  all  time  since  and  for  twenty-seven  hundred 
years,  has  commanded  the  admiration  of  mankind,  has  occu- 
pied whole  troops  of  commentators,  has  been  regarded  as  the 
model  and  unsurpassable  pattern  of  poetic  excellence,  has  been 
studied  in  all  nations  by  scholars  in  the  original  Greek  and 
read  with  avidity  in  every  cultivated  language  in  numerous 
translations,  has  been  imitated  by  poets  innumerable,  and  bor- 
rowed from  as  an  inexhaustible  treasure-house  of  poetic  thought 


TRANSLATORS  OF  HOMER.  269 

and  imagery,  and  is  now  as  much  admired  in  what  we  call 
the  noon-day  blaze  of  civilization  as  it  was  in  its  glimmering 
dawn. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  the  fame  of  the  venerable  Greek 
bard,  in  its  progress  through  the  centuries,  may  be  compared 
with  our  own  great  midland  river.  The  waters  of  our  Missis- 
sippi— which  fall  in  the  remote  Northwest  from  the  clouds  in 
unrecorded  showers,  which  gush  from  unnoticed  springs  in 
nooks  unknown  to  the  geographer,  and  are  gathered  into 
rivulets  without  a  name,  meeting  in  one  majestic  torrent — pour 
themselves  into  the  main  ocean  through  many  broad  mouths, 
and,  forming  a  part  of  it,  are  carried  by  its  current  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  They  move  in  the  Gulf  Stream  ;  they  beat 
on  the  cliffs  of  Europe ;  they  sweep  at  one  time  round  Cape 
Horn,  and  at  another  round  the  Cape  of  Storms  ;  they  join' 
company  in  one  distant  part  of  the  globe  with  the  waters  of 
the  Amazon,  and  in  another  with  the  waters  of  the  Congo  ; 
they  are  carried  into  the  Arctic  Sea;  they  ripple  on  the 
beaches  of  the  Spice  Islands  within  the  tropics,  and  on  shores 
overshadowed  by  palm-groves ;  they  dash  against  the  icy 
coasts  near  the  southern  pole  ;  they  drift  into  the  secret  cav- 
erns of  the  great  deep,  the  dim  abodes  assigned  by  Homer  to 
the  venerable  Oceanus  and  the  ancient  Tethys,  the  primal 
father  and  mother  of  all  the  gods  of  Olympus  and  the  Under- 
world. 

So  wide-extended,  so  universal,  so  all-pervading — notwith- 
standing the  rude  and  remote  antiquity  in  the  shadows  of 
which  it  had  its  birth — is  the  fame  of  Homer ;  it  knows  no  limit 
of  latitude,  or  race,  or  language ;  in  its  mighty  progress  it  is 
bounded  only  by  the  barriers  of  barbarism  ;  nor  will  it  cease  to 
enlarge  the  sphere  of  its  dominion  while  civilization  extends 
itself  on  the  earth  from  land  to  land  and  clime  to  clime. 


THE  MERCANTILE  LIBRARY.* 


I  ESTEEM  myself  fortunate  in  being  able  to  congratulate  the 
Mercantile  Library  Association  upon  having  arrived  at  its 
fiftieth  anniversary.  Forty-five  years  ago,  when  I  came  to 
live  in  New  York,  it  was  in  its  early  infancy.  The  public- 
spirited  gentlemen  by  whom  it  was  founded,  I  remember,  ex- 
pected much  from  it  in  the  future.  They  hoped,  and  the  hope 
was  not  vain,  that  it  would  greatly  aid  in  forming  the  minds  of 
the  younger  part  of  the  mercantile  class  to  liberal  tastes  and 
to  generous  views  of  their  duty  to  their  country  and  to  man- 
kind, and  that  it  would  be  in  some  measure  a  safeguard  against 
the  temptations  which  beset  young  men  in  a  populous  city. 
Those  who  then  sat  by  its  cradle,  if  they  survive,  are  now  aged 
men ;  those  whose  birth  was  coeval  with  ife  origin  are  men  of 
mature  age,  who  have  passed  the  zenith  of  life ;  the  books 
which  were  collected  in  its  first  years,  to  form  the  beginning 
of  what  is  now  a  flourishing  library,  belong  to  the  literature  of 
a  past  generation.  Yet,  in  founding  this  institution,  the  men 
of  that  day  left  a  noble  legacy  to  future  times.  While  other 
institutions  have  risen  and  fallen,  it  has  continued  to  grow  and 
to  extend  its  beneficial  influences  with  the  growth  of  our  city  ; 
not,  indeed,  in  the  same  proportion,  but  steadily  and  with  a 
sure  advance,  till  now  its  prosperity  and  duration  seem  almost 

*  An  address  delivered  on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  New 
York  Mercantile  Library,  November  9,  1870. 


THE  MERCANTILE  LIBRARY,  2/I 

beyond  the  reach  of  accident.  I  learn  that  there  is  no  library 
in  the  country  which  increases  so  fast  as  that  which  belongs 
to  this  association,  and  that  within  the  last  ten  years  it  has 
more  than  doubled  the  number  of  its  volumes.  If  it  proceeds 
at  this  rate  it  will  eventually  have  a  library  which  will  com- 
mand  the  admiration  of  the  world  and  become  the  pride  of 
our  country. 

In  the  years  yet  to  come,  far  in  the  depths  of  the  future, 
the  young  men  who  search  among  the  old  books  of  the  library 
will  say  to  each  other:  "  See  with  what  reading  our  ancestors 
entertained  themselves  many  centuries  since,  and  how  the 
language  has  changed  since  that  time  !  We  can  laugh  yet  at 
the  humor  of  Irving,  in  spite  of  the  antiquated  diction.  What 
a  fiery  spirit  animates  the  quaint  sentences  of  the  old  novelist 
Cooper  !  In  these  verses  of  Longfellow  we  still  perceive  the 
sweetness  of  the  numbers  and  the  pathos  of  the  thoughts,  and 
wonder  not  that  the  maidens  of  that  distant  age  wept  over  the 
pages  of  '  Evangeline.'  Here,"  they  will  add,  "  are  the  scien- 
tific works  of  that  distant  age.  Clever  men  were  these  ances- 
tors of  ours ;  diligent  inquirers,  fortunate  discoverers  of  scien- 
tific truth,  but  how  far  in  its  attainment  below  the  height 
which  we  have  since  reached  !  " 

What  I  have  just  now  imagined  supposes  our  flourishing 
library  to  escape  destruction  by  war  and  by  casual  fires.  Ah, 
my  friends,  never  may  the  fate  of  unhappy  Strasburg  be  ours ! 
to  lie  for  weeks  under  a  hail-storm  of  iron  and  a  rain  of  fire, 
showered  from  the  engines  of  destruction,  which  Milton  prop- 
erly makes  the  guilty  invention  of  the  sinning  angels,  and 
doomed  to  see  her  library,  rich  with  the  priceless  treasures 
of  past  centuries,  suddenly  turned  to  ashes.  But,  whatever 
may  be  the  fate  of  our  library,  the  association  itself  is  not 
so  easily  destroyed.  If  the  library  perish,  the  same  spirit 
which  founded  it  first  will  restore  it  so  far  as  a  restoration 
is  possible.  The  association,  I  venture  to  predict,  will  subsist 
till  this  great  mart  of  commerce  shall  be  a  mart  no  longer ; 
till  the  mercantile  class  shall  have  disappeared  from  the  spot 


2/2  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

where  it  stands,  and  New  York  shall  have  dwindled  to  a  fish- 
ing town. 

But  will  this  ever  be  ?  Will  our  great  city  share  the  fate 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  whose  merchants  were  princes,  and  which 
are  now  but  Arab  villages,  with  a  few  caiques  and  here  and 
there  a  felucca  moored  in  their  clear  but  shallow  waters, 
choked  with  the  ruins  of  palaces  ?  Will  she  become  like  Car- 
thage, once  mistress  of  flourishing  colonies,  but  now  a  des- 
ert ;  like  Corinth,  once  the  seat  of  a  vast  commerce — opulent, 
luxurious,  magnificent  Corinth — now  a  mere  cluster  of  houses 
overlooked  by  a  dismantled  and  mouldering  citadel?  * 

Or,  to  come  down  to  later  times,  will  this  city  decay  like 
Amsterdam,  the  mother  of  New  York,  and  once  the  centre  of 
the  world's  commerce  ?  or  like  Genoa,  surnamed  the  proud, 
and  Venice,  once  the  mistress  of  the  Adriatic,  cities  which, 
after  having  successively  wielded  the  commerce  of  the  East, 
and  made  Italian  the  language  of  commerce  in  all  the  ports  of 
the  Levant,  have  long  since  ceased  to  hold  a  place  among  the 
great  marts  of  the  world  ? 

I  answer  that  none  of  these  cities  had  the  same  firm  and 
durable  basis  of  commercial  prosperity  as  our  New  York.  It 
was  their  enterprise  in  opening  channels  of  trade  ;  it  was  their 
conquests  and  colonies  which  gave  them  their  temporary 
prosperity.  They  had  no  broad,  well-peopled  region  around 
them,  under  the  same  government  with  themselves,  whose 
superabundant  products  it  was  their  office  to  exchange  with 
other  countries.  Their  prosperity  was  built  on  narrow  foun- 
dations, and  it  fell.  Our  circumstances  are  different.  Here  is 
a  republic  of  vast  extent,  stretching  from  the  sea  which  bathes 
the  western  coast  of  Europe  to  that  which  washes  the  eastern 
shore  of  Asia — a  region  of  fertile  plains,  rich  valleys,  noble 
forests,  mountains  big  with  mines,  water-courses  whose  sands 
are  gold,  mighty  rivers,  railways  going  forth  from  our  great 
cities  to  every  point  of  the  compass,  and  covering  an  immense 

*  See  the  incomplete  lines  entitled  "  Corinth,"  in  "  Biography,"  vol.  ii,  p.  363 


THE  MERCANTILE  LIBRARY. 


273 


territory  with  their  intersections,  and  not  a  hinderance  to  com- 
merce between  city  and  city  or  between  sea  and  sea,  or  on 
our  great  rivers,  or  on  the  borders  of  the  States  forming  our 
confederation.  This  mighty  region,  alive  with  an  energetic 
population,  is  flanked  with  seaports  through  which  the  prod- 
ucts sent  by  us  to  other  countries  must  pass,  and  through 
which  the  merchandise  sent  us  in  exchange  must  be  received. 
They  are  therefore  an  indispensable  part  of  our  national 
economy.  Their  prosperity  is  necessary,  inevitable,  and  will 
endure  while  our  political  organization  remains  as  it  now  is. 

But,  if  it  should  come  to  pass  that  this  fortunate  order  of 
things  is  broken  up  ;  if  this  great  Republic  should  fall  to  pieces 
and  become  divided  into  a  group  of  independent  common- 
wealths, each  animated  by  a  narrow  jealousy  of  the  others ; 
and  if  an  illiberal  legislation  should  obstruct  the  channels  of 
trade  now  so  fortunately  open  over  all  our  vast  territory — there 
are  none  of  our  great  marts  of  exchange  for  whose  future 
prosperity  I  could  answer.  Some  would  fall  into  a  slow  de- 
cay, some  pass  into  a  rapid  decline ;  some  would  become  like 
Ascalon  on  the  coast  of  Palestine,  once  a  harbor  crowded  with 
shipping,  but,  when  I  saw  it,  a  desolate  spot,  where  the  sea- 
sand  had  drifted  upon  the  foundations  of  temples  and  palaces, 
invaded  the  harvest-fields,  and,  moving  .before  the  wind,  had 
entered  the  olive-groves  and  piled  itself  among  them  to  the 
tops  of  the  trees. 

Our  security  from  such  unhappy  results  will,  in  a  good  de- 
gree, lie  in  such  institutions  as  this,  and  in  other  means  of  a 
like  character,  the  object  of  which  is  to  diffuse  knowledge,  to 
open  men's  eyes  to  their  true  interests,  and  accustom  them  to 
large  and  generous  views  of  the  relation  of  communities  to 
each  other  and  to  the  world  at  large.  For  this  reason  let  us 
hope  for  the  permanent  and  increasing  prosperity  of  the  Mer- 
cantile Library  Association. 


ITALIAN    UNITY/ 


WE  are  assembled  to  celebrate  a  new  and  signal  triumph 
of  liberty  and  constitutional  government — not  a  victory  ob- 
tained by  one  religious  denomination  over  another,  but  the 
successful  assertion  of  rights  which  are  the  natural  inheritance 
of  every  man  born  into  the  world — rights  of  which  no  man 
can  divest  himself,  and  which  no  possible  form  of  government 
should  be  allowed  to  deny  its  subjects.  A  great  nation,  the 
Italian  nation,  while  yet  acknowledging  allegiance  to  the 
Latin  church,  has  been  moved  to  strike  the  fetters  of  civil  and 
religious  thraldom  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  most  interest- 
ing city  of  the  world  in  the  midst  of  their  exulting  acclama- 
tions. We  are  assembled  to  re-echo  those  acclamations. 

The  government  which  has  just  been  overthrown  in  Rome 
denied  to  those  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  its  subjects 
every  one  of  the  liberties  which  are  the  pride  and  glory  of 
our  own  country — liberty  of  the  press,  liberty  of  speech,  lib- 
erty of  worship,  liberty  of  assembling.  It  was  an  iron  despot- 
ism, which,  to  the  scandal  of  the  Christian  church,  insisted  on 
persecution  as  a  duty,  set  the  example  of  persecution  to  other 
Catholic  countries,  and,  wherever  it  could  make  itself  obeyed, 
maintained  the  obligation  of  repressing  heresy  by  the  law.  of 
force. 

*  An  address  delivered  at  a  popular  meeting  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  New 
York,  January,  1871. 


ITALIAN  UNITY.  275 

Take  a  single  example  of  the  manner  in  which  the  govern- 
ment was  administered.  An  American  lady,  an  acquaintance 
of  mine,  a  resident  in  Rome  for  several  years,  was  summoned 
one  morning  to  appear  before  the  police  of  that  city.  She 
went,  accompanied  by  the  American  consul. 

"  You  are  charged,"  said  the  police  magistrate,  "  with  hav- 
ing sent  money  to  Florence,  to  be  employed  in  founding  a 
Protestant  orphan  asylum.  What  do  you  say?  " 

"  I  did  send  money  for  that  purpose,"  was  the  lady's  an- 
swer. "  I  did  not  ask  for  it ;  it  was  brought  to  me  by  some 
ladies,  who  requested  me  to  forward  it  to  Florence,  and  I  did 
so ;  and  I  take  the  liberty  to  say  that  it  is  no  affair  of  yours." 

"  Of  that  you  are  not  to  judge,"  replied  the  magistrate. 
"  See  that  you  never  repeat  the  offence." 

Such  was  the  government  which,  to  the  great  joy  of  the 
Roman  people  and  the  satisfaction  of  the  friends  of  liberty 
everywhere,  has  been  overthrown.  Was  it  worthy — I  put 
this  question  to  this  assembly — was  such  a  government  worthy 
to  subsist  even  for  an  hour  ? 

And  yet  there  are  those  who  protest  against  this  change 
— American  citizens,  and  excellent  people  among  them,  who 
lend  their  names  to  a  public  remonstrance  against  admitting 
the  people  of  Rome  to  the  liberties  which  we  enjoy.  My 
friends,  is  there  a  single  one  of  these  liberties  which  is  not 
as  dear  to  you  as  the  light  of  day  and  the  free  air  of  heaven  ? 
The  liberty  of  public  worship — would  you  give  it  up  without  a 
mortal  struggle  ?  The  liberty  of  discussing  openly,  in  conver- 
sation or  by  means  of  the  press,  in  books  or  in  newspapers, 
every  question  which  interests  the  welfare  of  our  race — a  lib- 
erty of  which  the  poor  Romans  were  not  allowed  even  the 
shadow — this  and  the  liberty  of  assembling  as  we  now  assem- 
ble in  vast  throngs,  thousands  upon  thousands,  to  give  an  ex- 
pression of  public  opinion  the  significance  of  which  cannot  be 
mistaken — are  not  these  as  dear  to  you  as  the  crimson  current 
that  warms  your  hearts,  and  are  they  not  worthy  to  be  de- 
fended at  the  risk  of  your  lives  ?  How  is  it,  then,  that  any  citi- 


276  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

zen  of  our  own  country,  in  the  enjoyment  of  these  blessings, 
and  prizing  them  as  he  must,  can  protest  against  their  being 
conferred  upon  the  Roman  people — a  people  nobly  endowed 
by  nature,  and  worthy  of  a  better  lot  than  the  slavery  they 
have  endured  for  so  many  generations  ? 

What  sort  of  Protestantism  is  this  ?  Protestantism  in  its 
worst  form  of  misapplication.  I  should  as  soon  think  of  pro- 
testing against  the  glorious  light  of  the  sun,  of  protesting 
against  admitting  the  sweet  air  of  the  outer  world  into  a  dun- 
geon full  of  noisome  damps  and  stifling  exhalations.  I  should 
as  soon  think  of  remonstrating  with  Providence  against  the 
return  of  spring,  with  its  verdure  and  flowers  and  promise  of 
harvests,  after  a  long  and  dreary  winter.  Is  it  possible  that 
those  of  our  countrymen  who  lend  their  names  to  condemn 
this  act  of  justice  to  the  Roman  people  are  aware  of  what 
they  do  ? 

My  friends,  I  respect  profound  religious  convictions  wher- 
ever I  meet  them.  I  honor  a  good  life  wherever  I  see  it, 
and  I  find  men  of  saintly  lives  in  every  religious  denomina- 
tion. But,  when  I  hear  it  affirmed  that  there  is  a  natural 
alliance  between  despotism  and  Christianity,  that  the  nec- 
essary prop  and  support  of  religion  is  the  law  of  force,  and 
that  the  Christian  church  should  be  so  organized  that  its  head 
shall  be  an  absolute  temporal  monarch,  surrounded  by  a  popu- 
lation compelled  to  be  his  slaves,  I  must  say  to  those  who 
make  this  assertion,  whatever  be  their  personal  worth,  that 
their  doctrine  dishonors  Christianity,  that  it  brings  scandal 
upon  religion,  and  blasphemes  the  holy  and  gracious  memory 
of  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

It  is  now  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half  since  Roger 
Williams  established  in  Rhode  Island  a  commonwealth  on  the 
basis  of  strict  religious  equality.  That  was  a  little  light  shin- 
ing upon  the  world  from  a  distance,  and  slow  has  been  the  prog- 
ress of  the  nations  in  taking  that  commonwealth  for  an  exam- 
ple. Yet,  though  slow,  the  progress  of  religious  liberty  has 
been  constant ;  the  day  of  its  triumph  has  arrived ;  to-night 


ITALIAN   UNITY. 


277 


we  celebrate  its  crowning  conquest.  It  was  but  a  little  while 
since  that  Austria  thrust  out  the  priesthood  from  that  partner- 
ship in  the  political  power  which  it  had  held  for  centuries.  It 
is  not  many  years  since  that  at  Malaga,  in  Spain,  when  a  here- 
tic died,  his  corpse  was  conveyed  to  the  sea-beach,  amid  the 
hootings  of  the  populace,  and,  that  the  soil  of  Spain  might  not 
be  polluted  by  his  remains,  it  was  buried  in  the  sand  at  low- 
water  mark,  j  where  the  waves  sometimes  uncovered  it  and 
swept  it  out  to  sea  to  become  the  prey  of  sharks.  Now  the 
heretic  may  erect  a  temple  and  pay  worship  in  any  part  of 
Spain.  Not  long  since  there  was  no  part  of  Italy  in  which 
any  worship  save  that  of  the  Latin  church  was  permitted. 
Now  we  'owe  to  an  eminent  Italian  statesmen  the  glorious 
maxim,  "  A  free  church  in  a  free  state,"  and  we  behold  the  re- 
ligious conscience  set  free  from  its  fetters  even  in  the  Eternal 
City.  With  the  aid  of  popular  education  it  will  remain  so  for- 
ever. 

When  I  think  of  these  changes  I  am  reminded  of  that 
grand  allegory  in  one  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  in  which  we 
read  of  a  stone  cut  out  of  the  quarry  without  hands,  smiting  a 
gigantic  image  with  a  head  of  gold  and  legs  of  iron,  and  break- 
ing it  to  pieces,  which  became  like  the  chaff  of  the  summer 
threshing-floors,  to  be  carried  away  by  the  wind,  while  the 
stone  that  smote  the  image  grew  to  be  a  great  mountain  and 
filled  the  whole  earth.  Thus  has  the  principle  of  religious 
liberty,  a  stone  cut  out  of  the  quarry  without  hands — an  in- 
spiration of  the  Most  High — smitten  the  grim  tyranny  that 
held  the  religious  conscience  in  subjection  to  the  law  of  force, 
and  broken  it  into  fragments,  while  it  is  rapidly  expanding  it- 
self to  fill  the  civilized  world.  Let  us  hope  that  the  rubbish 
left  by  the  demolition  of  this  foul  idol,  made  small  as  the 
chaff  of  the  summer  threshing-floors  and  dispersed  by  the 
breath  of  public  opinion,  may  never  be  gathered  up  again  and 
reconstituted,  even  in  the  mildest  form  it  ever  wore,  while  the 
globe  on  which  we  tread  shall  endure. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE/ 


THERE  are  two  lines  in  the  poem  of  Dr.  Johnson's  on  the 
"  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  "  which  have  passed  into  a  proverb : 

"  See  nations  slowly  wise  and  meanly  just, 
To  buried  merit  raise  the  tardy  bust." 

It  is  our  good  fortune  to  escape  the  censure  implied  in 
these  lines.  We  come  together  on  the  occasion  of  raising  a 
statue,  not  to  buried  but  to  living  merit — to  a  great  discoverer 
who  yet  sits  among  us,  a  witness  of  honors  which  are  but  the 
first-fruits  of  that  ample  harvest  which  his  memory  will  gather 
in  the  long  train  of  seasons  yet  to  come.  Yet  we  cannot  con- 
gratulate ourselves  on  having  set  an  example  of  alacrity  in 
this  manifestation  of  the  public  gratitude.  If  our  illustrious 
friend,  to  whom  we  now  gladly  pay  these  honors,  had  not 
lived  beyond  the  common  age  of  man,  we  should  have  sorrow- 
fully laid  them  on  his  grave.  In  what  I  am  about  to  say,  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  relate  the  history  of  the  electric  tele- 
graph, or  discuss  the  claims  of  our  friend  to  be  acknowledged 
as  its  inventor.  I  took  up  the  other  day  one  of  the  forty-six 
volumes  of  the  great  biographical  dictionary  compiled  by 
French  authors,  and  immediately  after  the  name  of  Samuel 
Finley  Breese  Morse  I  read  the  words  "inventor  of  the  electric 

*  Address  delivered  on  the  unveiling  of  the  statue  of  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse, 
June  10,  1871. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE. 


279 


telegraph."  I  am  satisfied  with  this  ascription.  It  is  made  by 
a  nation  which,  having  no  claims  of  its  own  to  the  invention, 
is  naturally  impartial.  The  words  I  have  given  may  be  taken 
as  an  expression  of  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the  world,  and 
I  should  regard  it  as  a  waste  of  your  time  and  mine  to  occupy 
the  few  minutes  allotted  to  me  in  demonstrating  its  truth.  As 
to  the  history  of  this  invention,  it  is  that  of  most  great  dis- 
coveries. Coldly  and  doubtingly  received  at  first,  its  author 
compelled  to  struggle  with  difficulties,  to  encounter  neglect, 
to  contend  with  rivals,  it  has  gradually  gained  the  public 
favor  till  at  length  it  is  adopted  throughout  the  civilized 
world. 

It  now  lacks  but  a  few  years  of  half  a  century  since  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  man  whom  this  invention  has  made 
so  famous  in  all  countries.  He  was  then  an  artist,  devoted  to 
a  profession  in  which  he  might  have  attained  a  high  rank  had 
he  not,  fortunately  for  his  country  and  the  world,  left  it  for  a 
pursuit  in  which  he  has  risen  to  a  more  peculiar  eminence. 
Even  then,  in  the  art  of  painting,  his  tendency  to  mechanical 
invention  was  conspicuous.  His  mind,  as  I  remember,  was 
strongly  impelled  to  analyze  the  processes  of  his  art — to  give 
them  a  certain  scientific  precision,  to  reduce  them  to  fixed 
rules,  to  refer  effects  to  clearly  defined  causes,  so  as  to  put  it 
in  the  power  of  the  artist  to  produce  them  at  pleasure  and 
with  certainty,  instead  of  blindly  groping  for  them,  and,  in  the 
end,  owing  them  to  some  happy  accident,  or  some  instinctive 
effort,  of  which  he  could  give  no  account.  The  mind  of  Morse 
was  an  organizing  mind.  He  showed  this  in  a  remarkable 
manner  when  he  brought  together  the  artists  of  New  York, 
then  a  little  band  of  mostly  young  men,  whose  profession  was 
far  from  being  honored  as  it  now  is,  reconciled  the  disagree- 
ments which  he  found  existing  among  them,  and  founded  an 
association,  to  be  managed  solely  by  themselves — the  Academy 
of  the  Arts  of  Design — which  has  since  grown  to  such  noble 
dimensions,  and  which  has  given  to  the  artists  a  consideration 
in  the  community  far  higher  than  was  before  conceded  to 


28o  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES, 

them.  This  ingenuity  in  organization,  this  power  of  combin- 
ing the  causes  which  produce  given  effects  into  a  system  and 
making  them  act  together  to  a  common  end,  was  not  long 
afterward  to  be  exemplified  in  a  very  remarkable  manner. 

The  voyage  made  by  Mr.  Morse  from  Havre  to  New  York, 
on  board  the  packet-ship  Sully,  in  the  year  1832,  marks  an  im- 
portant era  in  the  history  of  inventions.  In  a  casual  conversa- 
tion with  some  of  the  passengers  concerning  certain  experi- 
ments which  showed  the  identity  of  magnetism  and  electricity, 
the  idea  struck  his  mind  that  in  a  gentle  and  steady  current  of 
the  electric  fluid  there  was  a  source  of  regular,  continued,  and 
rapid  motions,  which  might  be  applied  to  a  machine  for  con- 
veying messages  from  place  to  place,  and  inscribing  them  on 
a  tablet  at  their  place  of  destination.  We  can  fancy  the  in- 
ventor, full  of  this  thought,  as  he  paced  the  deck  of  the  Sully, 
or  lay  in  his  berth,  revolving  in  his  mind  the  mechanical  con- 
trivances by  which  this  was  to  be  effected,  until  the  whole 
process  had  taken  a  definite  shape  in  his  imagination,  and  he 
saw  before  him  all  the  countries  of  the  civilized  world  inter- 
sected with  lines  of  his  electric  wire,  bearing  messages  to  and 
fro  with  the  speed  of  light. 

I  have  already  said  that  this  invention  met  with  a  tardy 
welcome.  It  was  not  till  three  years  after  this — that  is  to  say, 
in  1835 — that  Morse  found  means  to  demonstrate  to  the  public 
its  practicability  by  a  telegraph  constructed  on  an  economical 
scale,  and  set  up  at  the  New  York  University,  which  recorded 
messages  at  their  place  of  destination.  The  public,  however, 
still  seemed  indifferent ;  there  was  none  of  the  loud  applause, 
none  of  that  enthusiastic  reception  which  it  now  seems  natural 
should  attend  the  birth  of  so  brilliant  a  discovery.  The  invent- 
or, however,  saw  farther  than  we  all,  and,  I  think,  never  lost 
courage.  Yet  I  remember  that  some  three  or  four  years  after 
this  he  said  to  me,  with  some  despondency  :  "  Wheatstone,  in 
England,  and  Steinheil,  in  Bavaria,  who  have  their  electric 
telegraphs,  are  afforded  the  means  of  bringing  forward  their 
methods,  while  to  my  invention,  of  earlier  date  than  theirs,  my 


SAMUEL  F,  B.  MORSE.  28 1 

country  seems  to  show  no  favor."  He  persevered,  however, 
and  the  doubts  of  those  who  hesitated  were  finally  dispelled 
in  1844  by  the  establishment  of  a  telegraph  on  his  plan  be- 
tween Washington  and  Baltimore.  France  and  other  coun- 
tries on  the  European  continent  soon  adopted  his  invention, 
and  vied  with  each  other  in  rewarding  him  with  honors.  The 
indifference  of  his  countrymen,  which  he  could  not  but  acutely 
feel,  gave  place  to  pride  in  his  growing  fame,  and  to-day  we 
express  our  admiration  for  his  genius  and  our  gratitude  for 
the  benefit  he  has  conferred  upon  the  world  by  erecting  this 
statue,  which  has  just  been  unveiled  to  the  public. 

It  may  be  said,  I  know,  that  the  civilized  world  is  already 
full  of  memorials  which  speak  the  merit  of  our  friend,  and  the 
grandeur  and  utility  of  his  invention.  Every  telegraphic  sta- 
tion is  such  a  memorial ;  every  message  sent  from  one  of  these 
stations  to  another  may  be  counted  among  the  honors  paid  to 
his  name.  Every  telegraphic  wire  strung  from  post  to  post, 
as  it  hums  in  the  wind,  murmurs  his  eulogy.  Every  sheaf  of 
wires  laid  down  in  the  deep  sea,  occupying  the  bottom  of 
soundless  abysses,  to  which  human  sight  has  never  penetrated, 
and  carrying  the  electric  pulse,  charged  with  the  burden  of 
human  thought,  from  continent  to  continent,  from  the  Old 
World  to  the  New,  is  a  testimonial  to  his  greatness.  Nor  are 
these  wanting  in  the  solitudes  of  the  land.  Telegraphic  lines 
crossing  the  breadth  of  our  continent,  climbing  hills,  descend- 
ing into  valleys,  threading  mountain  passes,  silently  proclaim 
the  great  discovery  and  its  author  to  the  uninhabited  desert. 
Even  now  there  are  plans  for  putting  a  girdle  of  telegraphic 
stations  around  the  globe,  which  in  all  probability  will  never 
be  disused,  and  will  convey  a  knowledge  of  his  claims  on  the 
gratitude  of  mankind  to  millions  who  will  never  see  the  statue 
erected  to-day.  Thus  the  latin  inscription  in  the  Church  of 
St.  Paul's,  in  London,  referring  to  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  its 
architect,  "  If  you  would  behold  his  monument,  look  around 
you,"  may  be  applied  in  a  far  more  comprehensive  sense  to 
our  friend,  since  the  great  globe  itself  has  become  his  monu- 


282  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

ment.  All  this  may  be  said  and  all  this  would  be  undeniably 
true,  but  our  natural  instincts  are  not  thus  satisfied.  It  is  not 
the  name  of  a  benefactor  merely,  it  is  the  person  that  we  cher- 
ish ;  and  we  require,  whenever  it  is  possible,  the  visible  present- 
ment of  his  face  and  form  to  aid  us  in  keeping  the  idea  of  his 
worth  before  our  minds.  Who  would  willingly  dispense  with 
the  image  of  Washington  as  we  have  it  in  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, and  consent  that  it  should  be  removed  from  the  walls  of 
our  dwellings  and  from  all  public  places,  and  that  the  calm 
countenance  and  majestic  presence  with  which  we  associate  so 
many  virtues  should  disappear  and  be  utterly  and  forever  for- 
gotten ?  Who  will  deny  that,  by  means  of  these  resemblances 
of  his  person,  we  are  the  more  frequently  reminded  of  the  rev. 
erence  we  owe  to  his  memory  ?  So  in  the  present  instance  we 
are  not  willing  that  our  idea  of  Morse  should  be  reduced  to  a 
mere  abstraction.  We  are  so  constituted  that  we  insist  upon 
seeing  the  form  of  that  brow  beneath  which  an  active,  restless, 
creative  brain  devised  the  mechanism  that  was  to  subdue  the 
most  wayward  of  the  elements  to  the  service  of  man  and  make 
it  his  obedient  messenger.  We  require  to  see  the  eye  that 
glittered  with  a  thousand  lofty  hopes  when  the  great  discov- 
ery was  made,  and  the  lips  that  curled  with  a  smile  of  triumph 
when  it  became  certain  that  the  lightning  of  the  clouds  would 
become  tractable  to  the  most  delicate  touch.  We  demand  to 
see  the  hand  which  first  strung  the  wire  by  whose  means  the 
slender  currents  of  the  electric  fluid  were  taught  the  alphabet 
of  every  living  language — the  hand  which  pointed  them  to  the 
spot  where  they  were  to  inscribe  and  leave  their  messages. 
All  this  we  have  in  the  statue  which  has  this  day  been  un- 
veiled to  the  eager  gaze  of  the  public,  and  in  which  the  artist 
has  so  skilfully  and  faithfully  fulfilled  his  task  as  to  satisfy 
those  who  are  the  hardest  to  please,  the  most  intimate  friends 
of  the  original.  But  long  may  it  be,  my  friends — very  long — 
before  any  such  resemblance  of  our  illustrious  friend  shall  be 
needed,  by  those  who  have  the  advantage  of  his  acquaintance, 
to  refresh  the  image  of  his  form  and  bearing  as  it  exists  in  their 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE.  283 

minds.  Long  may  we  keep  with  us  what  is  better  than  the 
statue — the  noble  original ;  long  may  it  remain  among  us  in  a 
healthful  and  serene  old  age;  late,  very  late,  may  He  who 
gave  the  mind  to  which  we  owe  the  grand  discovery  to-day 
commemorated  recall  it  to  His  more  immediate  presence,  that 
it  may  be  employed  in  a  higher  sphere  and  in  a  still  more  bene- 
ficial activity. 

VOL.   II. — 19 


NEGOTIATION  VS.  WAR/ 


WHEN  the  press  is  toasted  on  an  occasion  like  this,  it  is 
natural  to  suppose  that  the  toast  particularly  refers  to  that 
department  of  the  press  which  deals  immediately  with  the 
events  and  questions  of  the  day,  and  gives  expression  to  the 
opinions  prevailing  at  the  time.  For  that  department  of  the 
press  I  rise  to  answer. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  events,  embracing  the 
adjustment  of  some  of  the  most  earnestly  agitated  questions  of 
the  time,  is  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  in  framing  which  sev- 
eral of  the  distinguished  persons  who  sit  at  the  board  have 
borne  a  part.  So  far  as  the  press  of  this  country  is  concerned, 
I  believe  I  may  answer  for  it  that,  as  a  general  thing,  it  will 
faithfully  express  the  public  satisfaction  with  what  they  have 
done.  While  two  of  the  greatest  nations  of  the  civilized 
world  have  been  engaged  in  mutual  slaughter,  bringing  upon 
each  other  the  miseries  and  sufferings  of  one  of  the  bloodiest 
wars  of  modern  times,  two  other  great  nations,  Great  Britain 
and  our  Republic,  at  variance  upon  some  important  points, 
have  deputed  their  trusted  agents  to  settle  these  differences, 
to  restore  a  somewhat  interrupted  friendship,  and  to  leave  no 
cause  of  dispute  which  by  any  possibility  could  occasion  a 

*  Remarks  made  at  the  dinner  given  to  the  High  Commissioners  who  negotiated 
the  Treaty  of  Washington,  New  York,  May,  1871. 


NEGOTIATION   VS.    WAR.  285 

war.  This  has  been  done  with  wisdom  and  moderation,  and  a 
sincere  desire  to  meet  every  reasonable  expectation  that  could 
be  entertained  in  either  country.  History  will  give  the  treaty 
they  framed  a  place  on  its  pages  as  a  settlement  alike  just  and 
honorable  to  both  parties.  The  press  of  this  country,  I  am 
sure,  will  in  this  agree  with  history,  nor  can  I  believe  that  a 
different  judgment  will  be  expressed  by  that  of  Britain. 

When  we  review  the  history  of  the  past  twelvemonth  we 
cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  contrast  between  the  tri- 
umphs of  war  and  this  triumph  of  peace.  The  new  empire  of 
Germany  has  wrested  from  France  and  added  to  its  territory 
two  important  provinces  bordering  upon  the  Rhine  ;  but  at 
what  a  cost  of  her  best  blood,  at  what  a  sacrifice  of  the  flower 
of  her  population,  and  with  what  a  sad  certainty  of  the  last- 
ing hate  of  the  nation  from  which  these  provinces  have  been 
severed  !  On  the  other  hand,  her  adversary,  proud  and  high- 
spirited  France,  has  been  thrust  down  into  the  very  pit  of  humili- 
ation ;  not  only  dismembered  and  weakened,  but  wasted,  smit- 
ten with  famine,  and  covered  with  ruins — the  cemeteries  of  her 
populous  towns,  long  under  the  bombs  of  the  German  armies, 
choked  with  the  graves  of  helpless  women  and  innocent  chil- 
dren. As  if  these  horrors  were  not  enough,  the  people  of  her 
magnificent  metropolis,  when  the  war  with  Germany  was  scarce 
ended,  have  risen  in  revolt  against  the  government  of  the  coun- 
try and  engaged  in  a  murderous  civil  contest.  Ah,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, if,  instead  of  the  news  which  we  now  receive  through  the 
sheaf  of  telegraphic  wires  laid  by  your  enterprise — news,  of 
the  destruction  of  the  Vendome  Column  and  other  monuments 
with  which  the  arts  have  illustrated  the  history  of  France — 
the  press  could  record  that  the  popular  fury  had  turned  upon 
the  fortifications  of  Paris,  which  make  it  a  vast  prison-house 
and  have  been  the  cause  of  such  terrible  suffering  !  Happy 
would  it  have  been  for  that  country  if,  at  the  very  moment 
that  the  third  Napoleon  was  dethroned,  the  populace  had 
flung  itself  on  these  fatal  ramparts  with  shouts,  and  levelled 
them  to  the  ground,  as  the  walls  of  Geneva  were  not  long 


286  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

since  levelled,  leaving  not  one  stone  upon  another !  Happy 
would  it  have  been  if  that  grim  circle  had  been  transformed 
to  a  park  with  grassy  eminences  and  sheltered  hollows  and 
bowery  plantations  of  trees,  where  children  might  sport  and 
lovers  walk  and  friends  saunter,  and  the  weary  artisan  rest  and 
be  refreshed  with  the  sweet  air  and  with  listening  to  the 
breezes  among  the  leaves  and  the  song  of  birds  ! 

In  those  triumphs  of  war  to  which  I  have  referred,  both 
parties  are  the  losers.  In  the  triumph  of  peace  which  we  cele- 
brate to-day,  both  parties  are  the  gainers.  The  possibility  of 
war  between  them  for  causes  already  existing  is  done  away  ; 
rival  interests  are  conciliated,  doubtful  rights  are  denned,  and 
the  two  nations  are  put  each  in  its  own  path  to  prosperity, 
beyond  danger  of  collision  with  the  other.  Mr.  President  and 
gentlemen,  may  their  friendly  relations  be  perpetual. 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.* 


THE  toast  which  has  just  been  given  (to  the  literature  of 
Germany)  opens  a  vast  field  for  remark.  I  shall  hardly  ven- 
ture to  enter  it ;  I  shall  merely  peep  over  its  hedge,  and  so  re- 
frain from  inflicting  upon  the  patience  of  this  company  a  tenth 
part  of  the  tediousness  for  which  the  toast  gives  an  opportu- 
nity. A  most  affluent  literature  is  that  of  Germany ;  rich  in 
every  one  of  its  departments,  and  great  in  the  influence  which 
it  has  exerted  upon  the  literature  of  other  countries.  I  well 
remember  the  time — it  was  in  my  early  youth,  almost  in  my 
childhood — when  a  very  serious  alarm  was  manifested  lest  the 
literature  of  our  own  language  should  become  distempered 
and  spoiled  by  the  contagion  which  threatened  it  from  Ger- 
many. The  German  mind  had  then  just  shaken  itself  free 
from  the  fetters  of  a  cold  and  slavish  imitation  of  French 
models,  and  the  German  authors  boldly  set  up  for  them- 
selves. Schiller's  tragedy  of  "  The  Robbers,"  of  which  Camp- 
bell, in  a  poem  of  that  day,  speaks  with  so  much  enthusi- 
asm, had  been  represented  on  the  English  stage,  and  the 
blood  of  large  audiences  was  frozen  in  their  veins.  Young 
maidens  were  weeping  in  their  closets  over  Goethe's  "  Sor- 
rows of  Werther."  An  inferior  genius,  Kotzebue,  had  lit- 
tered a  numerous  brood  of  sentimental  comedies,  which  had 

*  Remarks  at  a  dinner  given  to  Baron  Gerolt,  German  ambassador,  May  17, 1871. 


288  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

taken  possession  of  our  stage.  In  narratives  and  ballads  the 
German  authors  had  made  a  daring  use  of  the  supernatural, 
in  which  they  were  followed,  with  some  exaggeration,  by  the 
English  author  Lewis,  in  his  "  Monk,"  his  "  Castle  Spectre," 
and  "Tales  of  Wonder."  The  German  metaphysicians  had 
laid  before  the  world  a  mass  of  speculations  in  philosophy 
of  a  subtiler  nature  than  had  ever  before  claimed  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world.  The  German  rationalists,  learned  and 
persevering,  were  questioning  without  reserve  a  multitude 
of  points  of  belief  which  had  hitherto  been  held  with  undoubt- 
ing  reverence.  All  these  symptoms  created  a  certain  uneasi- 
ness and  anxiety  for  the  final  result,  as  I  remember,  both  in 
England  and  here,  and  called  forth  a  good  deal  not  only  of 
criticism  but  of  ridicule. 

But  this  anxiety  gradually  wore  away.  Schiller  and  Goethe 
produced  nobler  works,  grew  to  be  great  men,  and  took  their 
exalted  stations  in  the  temple  of  fame.  Kotzebue  in  due  time 
was  forgotten.  The  ballads  of  Schiller  and  Goethe  and  Burger 
were  found  to  be  among  the  most  exquisite  things  of  their 
kind  ever  written.  Our  metaphysicians  welcomed  the  impulse 
which  they  received  from  those  of  Germany,  and  walked  with 
delight  in  the  dim  mazes  of  the  new  fields  which  they  opened. 
If  the  rationalists  in  theology  found  their  weapons  of  attack  in 
German  authors,  there  were  German  authors  on  the  other 
side  who  supplied  as  largely  the  weapons  of  defence.  The 
Germans  were  acknowledged  as  the  most  profound  inquirers 
into  ancient  history,  the  most  acute  and  erudite  philologists, 
and  in  classical  literature  to  have  no  rivals.  The  poets  of  our 
own  language  who  introduced  a  new  era  of  poetical  literature — 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  Southey  and  Scott — drank  deep- 
ly at  the  German  fountains. 

Great  poets,  pre-eminent  in  their  class,  like  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  may  be  compared,  in  the  universality  of  their  recep- 
tion by  mankind,  to  the  main  ocean,  which  connects  with  each 
other  all  the  shores  of  the  earth — its  continents  and  its  brood 
of  islands — holding  them  all  in  its  mighty  embrace.  Over  it 


GERMAN  LITERATURE.  289 

passes  the  commerce  of  the  world,  the  beneficent  exchange  of 
commodities  between  nation  and  nation.  Its  ports  run  up  into 
every  land ;  it  receives  the  water  of  a  thousand  rivers,  the  cold 
streams  of  northern  latitudes,  the  warm  floods  of  the  tropics, 
tributes  from  the  Alps  and  the  Andes,  from  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  The  icebergs  of  the 
Pole  drift  over  it  to  dissolve  in  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  Stream. 
On  its  surface  the  swift  steamers  are  shooting  from  land  to 
land,  and  deep  in  its  bosom  lies  the  electric  wire  of  Morse, 
which  conveys  with  the  speed  of  light,  from  zone  to  zone,  tid- 
ings of  peace  and  war,  of  the  deliberations  of  senates  and  the 
edicts  of  monarchs,  of  empires  overthrown  and  empires  found- 
ed, and  of  the  fate  of  ancient  hierarchies  in  their  struggle  with 
the  youthful  spirit  of  the  age. 

Like  this  in  their  connection  with  the  people  of  all  countries 
are  the  poets  who  stand  at  the  head  of  their  class.  Schiller 
has  somewhere  said  that  the  poet  is  a  citizen  of  the  world. 
The  greater  ones  are  certainly  and  emphatically  so.  Their 
works  speak  to  the  human  heart  everywhere ;  their  voice  is 
heard  from  age  to  age ;  their  fame  is  the  common  property  of 
mankind ;  their  writings  are  among  the  ties  that  bind  the  tribes 
of  men  in  a  common  brotherhood.  How  many  have  studied 
English  that  they  may  read  Shakespeare  in  the  original !  How 
many  have  learned  German  that  they  may  enjoy  the  writings 
of  Goethe !  How  decidedly  have  the  plays  of  Schiller,  natu- 
ralized in  all  countries,  communicated  their  own  character  to 
the  dramatic  literature  of  the  age !  Into  how  many  languages 
have  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare  been  translated,  and  how 
many  times  into  the  same  language  ?  The  Germans  have  trans- 
lated him  the  most  perfectly  of  all.  How  many  attempts  have 
been  made  to  transfuse  the  poetry  of  Goethe  into  the  words 
and  phrases  of  our  own  tongue,  and  make  the  poet  of  Weimar 
speak  English !  One  such  has  just  been  made,  with  signal 
success,  by  an  eminent  poet  of  our  republic,  who,  in  translat- 
ing the  grandest  of  all  extravaganzas,  "  Faust,"  has  even  ad- 
ventured upon  the  second  part,  and  admirably  acquitted  him- 


290  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

self  there,  having  found  his  way  to  daylight  out  of  that  myste- 
rious labyrinth.  Another  American  had  previously  translated 
with  skill  and  spirit  the  first  part,  and  both  are  proud  to  be 
the  interpreters  of  Goethe  to  their  countrymen.  With  two 
such  splendid  illustrations  of  my  remarks,  furnished  by  these 
authors,  I  could  not  more  fortunately  conclude. 


DARWIN'S  THEORY; 


IT  is  a  good  while  since  the  remark  was  made  by  an  Eng- 
lish wit  that  he  did  not  like  to  look  at  monkeys,  they  seemed  to 
him  so  much  like  poor  relations.  What  was  regarded  at  that 
time  as  a  clever  jest  has  since  been  taken  by  an  eminent  natu- 
ralist as  ther  basis  of  an  extensive  system  which  professes  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  the  human  species.  According  to 
this  system,  man  is  an  improved  monkey,  and  the  lowest  form 
of  animal  life  is  found  in  a  minute  animated  cell.  A  num- 
ber of  these  cells  come  casually  together  and  form  a  dab  of 
jelly  fixed  on  a  crag  in  the  ocean.  They  somehow  become  ar- 
ranged in  a  sort  of  symmetry  ;  they  gradually  acquire  organs ; 
they  rise  to  the  dignity  of  oysters  and  mussels ;  the  weak 
are  weeded  out  by  a  principle  of  natural  selection ;  others  rise 
higher  and  higher  in  the  scale  of  being ;  they  become  quadru- 
peds ;  they  crawl  out  upon  the  land  ;  they  waddle  on  the  shore 
in  shape  of  seals ;  they  build  houses  as  beavers ;  they  climb 
trees  as  squirrels ;  their  talons  and  paws  become  hands  fur- 
nished with  fingers,  and  we  have  the  monkey ;  the  monkey 
acquires  the  faculty  of  speech,  and  matures  into  a  man.  It  is 
the  old  theory  of  Monboddo  propounded  a  hundred  years  ago, 
but  spread  over  a  larger  surface  and  set  forth  with  new  illus- 
trations. 

But  allowing  all  that  Darwin  says  of  the  consanguinity 

*  Remarks  at  Williams  College  Alumni  Dinner,  December  28,  1871. 


292  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

of  man  and  of  the  inferior  animals,  admitting  that  we  are  of 
the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  the  baboon  and  the  rat,  where  does 
he  find  his  proof  that  we  are  improving  instead  of  degenerat- 
ing ?  He  claims  that  man  is  an  improved  monkey  ;  how  does 
he  know  that  the  monkey  is  not  a  degenerate  man,  a  decayed 
branch  of  the  human  family,  fallen  away  from  the  high  rank 
he  once  held,  and  haunted  by  a  dim  sentiment  of  his  lost  dig- 
nity, as  we  may  infer  from  his  melancholy  aspect  ?  Improve- 
ment, Mr.  President  and  gentlemen,  implies  effort :  it  is  up-hill 
work ;  degeneracy  is  easy :  it  asks  only  neglect,  indolence,  in- 
action. How  often  do  the  descendants  of  illustrious  men  be- 
come the  most  stupid  of  the  human  race !  How  many  are 
there,  each  of  whom  we  may  call 

"  The  tenth  transmitter  of  a  foolish  face  !  " 

— a  line  of  Savage,  the  best  he  ever  wrote,  worth  all  his  other 
verses  put  together — 

"  The  tenth  transmitter  of  a  foolish  face  " — 

and  that  face  growing  more  and  more  foolish  from  generation 
to  generation.  I  might  instance  the  Bourbon  family,  lately 
reigning  in  Spain  and  Naples.  I  might  instance  the  royal 
family  of  Austria.  There  is  a  whole  nation,  millions  upon  mill- 
ions— our  Chinese  neighbors — of  whom  the  better  opinion  is 
that  they  have  been  going  backward  in  civilization  from  cen- 
tury to  century.  Perhaps  they  wear  the  pigtail  as  an  emblem 
of  what  they  are  all  coming  to  some  thousands  of  years  hence. 
How,  then,  can  Mr.  Darwin  insist  that  if  we  admit  the  near 
kindred  of  man  to  the  inferior  animals  we  must  believe  that 
our  progress  has  been  upward,  and  that  the  nobler  animals 
are  the  progeny  of  the  inferior?  Is  not  the  contrary  the  more 
probable  ?  Is  it  not  more  likely  that  the  more  easy  downward 
road  has  been  taken,  that  the  lower  animals  are  derived  from 
some  degenerate  branch  of  the  human  race,  and  that,  if  we  do 
not  labor  to  keep  the  rank  we  hold,  our  race  may  be  frittered 
away  into  the  meaner  tribes  of  animals,  and  finally  into  animal- 


DARWIN'S   THEORY.  293 

culas  ?  Then  may  our  Tweeds  become  the  progenitors  of  those 
skulking  thieves  of  the  western  wilds,  the  prairie-wolves,  or 
swim  stagnant  pools  in  the  shape  of  horse-leeches  ;  our  astute 
lawyers  may  be  represented  by  foxes,  our  great  architects  by 
colonies  of  beavers,  our  poets  by  clouds  of  mosquitoes,  fam- 
ished and  musical ;  our  doctors  of  divinity — I  say  it  with  all  re- 
spect for  the  cloth — by  swarms  of  the  mantis,  or  praying  in- 
sect, always  in  the  attitude  of  devotion.  If  we  hold  to  Dar- 
win's theory — as^I  do  not — how  are  we  to  know  that  the  vast 
multitudes  of  men  and  women  on  the  earth  are  not  the  ruins, 
so  to  speak,  of  some  nobler  species,  with  more  elevated  and 
perfect  faculties,  mental,  physical,  and  moral,  but  now  extinct  ? 
Let  me  say,  then,  to  those  who  believe  in  the  relationship  of 
the  animal  tribes,  that  it  behooves  them  to  avoid  the  danger 
which  I  have  pointed  out  by  giving  a  generous  support  to 
those  institutions  of  wholesome  learning,  like  Williams  College, 
designed  to  hold  us  back  from  the  threatened  degeneracy  of 
which  there  are  fearful  protents  abroad — portents  of  moral  de- 
generacy at  least.  Let  them  move  before  we  begin  to  squeak 
like  bats  or  gibber  like  apes ;  before  that  mark  of  the  brute, 
the  tail,  has  sprouted,  or,  at  least,  while  it  is  in  the  tender  germ, 
the  mere  bud,  giving  but  a  faint  and  distinct  promise  of  what 
it  may  become  when  the  owner  shall  coil  its  extremity  around 
the  horizontal  branch  of  a  tree  and  swing  himself  by  it  from 
one  trunk  of  the  forest  to  another.  If  any  one  here  be  con- 
scious of  but  a  friendly  leaning  to  the  m onkeyjthgQry .  let  him 
contribute  liberally  to  the  fund  for  putting  up  a  building 
where  the  students  of  Williams  College  can  be  cheaply  board- 
ed ;  if  the  taint  have  struck  deeper,  let  him  found  a  scholar- 
ship ;  if  he  have  fully  embraced  the  theory,  let  him,  at  any 
sacrifice,  found  a  professorship,  and  then,  although  his  theory 
may  be  wrong,  his  practice  in  this  instance  will  be  worthy  of 
universal  commendation. 


MUNICIPAL  REFORM.4 


I  AM  glad,  my  fellow-citizens,  to  see  that  this  occasion  has 
brought  so  many  of  you  together.  It  is  not  for  any  narrow 
party  purpose  that  we  are  assembled  ;  it  is  not  that  we  may 
consult  how  to  advance  the  interests  of  a  popular  favorite  and 
his  associates ;  it  is  not  to  pull  down  his  rival  and  the  set  of 
men  by  whom  his  rival  is  supported.  It  is  by  a  higher  and 
nobler  motive  that  you  are  animated,  one  in  which  all  honest 
men  necessarily  concur — the  wish  to  secure  to  the  State,  and 
to  all  the  smaller  communities  of  which  the  State  is  made  up, 
the  benefits  of  a  just,  honest,  economical,  and,  in  all  respects, 
wise  administration  of  public  affairs.  You  could  hardly  come 
together  for  a  more  worthy  purpose. 

It  seems  an  idle  remark,  because  it  is  perfectly  obvious, 
that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  have  no  interest  in  being 
badly  governed,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  their  interest  lies  in 
committing  their  public  affairs  to  men  who  will  manage  them 
honestly  and  frugally.  It  is  the  great  mass  who  suffer  when 
rapacious  and  knavish  men  obtain  authority  and  power.  The 
robbers  are  the  few  ;  the  robbed  are  the  many.  If  the  many 
would  only  come  to  a  mutual  understanding  and  act  together, 
the  robbers  would  never  obtain  public  office,  or,  if  by  accident 
they  obtained  it,  would  be  thrust  out  the  first  opportunity.  In 

*  An  address  delivered  at  a  meeting  held  in  the  Cooper  Institute,  September  23, 
1872. 


MUNICIPAL  REFORM. 


295 


these  matters  concert  of  action  is  everything,  and  the  rogues 
know  it.  As  long  as  the  opposition  to  their  designs  is  divided 
into  many  little  minorities,  they  laugh  at  it.  High-handed  vil- 
lany  takes  its  adversaries,  one  after  another,  by  the  throat,  and 
strangles  them  in  detail.  An  army  scattered  is  an  army  de- 
feated. It  has  passed  into  a  proverb  that  in  union  there  is 
strength ;  it  is  just  as  true  that  in  division  there  is  weakness, 
and  there  are  none  who  know  this  better  than  the  knaves  who 
enrich  themselves  by  plundering  the  public. 

The  material  world  abounds  with  instances  of  the  power 
obtained  by  the  combination  of  forces.  I  came  a  few  days  since 
from  a  rural  neighborhood  which  a  few  weeks  before  had  been 
visited  by  a  shower  of  rain  more  copious  and  violent  than  any 
living  person  remembered.  In  two  hours  the  roads  leading 
down  the  hills  were  ploughed  by  it  into  deep  channels  for  the 
torrents,  and  rendered  impassable  ;  bridges  were  swept  away ; 
huge  stones  were  rolled  down  before  the  waters  ;  and  beds  of 
soil,  sand,  gravel,  pebbles,  and  fragments  of  rock  were  borne 
along  from  field  to  field  and  found  new  owners.  Yet  this  sud- 
den flood  was  composed  of  single  drops  of  rain,  each  one  of 
which,  as  it  reached  the  earth,  had  not  force  enough  to  displace 
the  smallest  pebble.  It  was  combination,  it  was  concert  of 
action,  it  was  organization,  that  gave  them  their  fearful  power. 
The  drops  were  gathered  into  rills,  the  rills  into  streams,  the 
streams  into  torrents.  By  union  they  became  terrible ;  by 
union  they  were  made  irresistible  ;  and  all  that  man  could  do 
was  to  look  on  till  their  work  was  done. 

Just  as  irresistible,  and  just  as  sure  to  accomplish  their 
work,  will  be  the  men  whose  interest  it  is  that  public  affairs 
shall  be  frugally  and  wisely  administered,  if  they  can  only  be 
brought  to  combine  with  one  purpose  and  one  system  of  ac- 
tion. To  promote  this  end  we  are  assembled  this  evening. 
Let  me  not  be  told  that  if  we  keep  one  set  of  rogues  out  of 
office  another  will  be  sure  to  have  their  place.  That  is  the 
moral  of  an  old  fable  of  JEsop,  but  the  moral  is  a  false  one. 
You  remember  the  ingenious  parable :  A  fox  among  the  reeds 


296  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

of  a  stream  was  tormented  by  gnats.  A  swallow,  I  think  it 
was,  saw  his  distress,  and  offered  to  drive  them  away.  "  Do 
not,"  said  the  fox,  "  for,  if  you  drive  these  away,  a  hungrier 
swarm  will  come  in  their  place  and  drain  my  veins  of  their 
last  drop  of  blood."  But,  my  friends,  all  that  I  infer  from  this 
fable  is  that  official  corruption  is  more  than  two  thousand  years 
old,  at  least.  The  lesson  which  this  fable  seems  to  inculcate — 
that  they  who  plunder  the  public  should  not  be  molested  in 
their  guilty  work — is  absurd.  There  are  in  the  community 
men  whom  you  know  to  be  absolutely  honest,  men  of  proved 
integrity,  and  all  that  you  have  to  do  is  to  agree  upon  such 
men  as  your  candidates  for  office,  and  the  public  interest  is 
safe.  Let  me  relate  for  your  encouragement  what  has  already 
been  done  in  this  city. 

It  was  about  forty  years  ago — when  many  who  now  do  me 
the  honor  of  listening  to  me  were  in  their  cradles,  but  I  will 
not  be  certain  as  to  the  year — that  the  people  of  this  city  of 
New  York  were  very  much  dissatisfied  with  their  Common 
Council,  which  was  then  composed  of  a  single  board,  the  Al- 
dermen. Some  of  the  Aldermen  had  grown  rich  while  in  of- 
fice. They  knew  sooner  than  other  persons  where  new  streets 
were  to  be  laid  out,  and  they  purchased  lands  contiguous  to 
those  streets,  which  they  afterward  sold  at  a  large  advance. 
One  of  the  Aldermen  owned  a  country  seat  at  the  northern 
extremity  of  the  Third  Avenue,  and  through  his  influence  a 
great  deal  of  money  was  expended  upon  that  thoroughfare, 
making  it  as  hard  as  a  rock,  and  so  smooth  and  even  that,  as  I 
heard  a  gentleman  say  at  the  time,  there  was  not  on  its  whole 
surface  a  hollow  deep  enough  to  hold  a  pint  of  water.  These 
now  seem  small  offences,  which,  compared  with  the  crimes  of 
Tweed  and  his  set,  almost  whiten  into  perfect  innocence  ;  yet 
the  people  of  that  .day  were  discontented,  and  declared  that 
they  wanted  men  in  office  who  thought  only  of  the  public 
good.  So  we  all  went  to  work  and  elected  a  Common  Coun- 
cil of  honest  men,  in  spite  of  ^Esop  and  his  fable.  Let  me  name 
some  of  them  :  There  was  Stephen  Allen,  the  very  imperso- 


MUNICIPAL  REFORM. 


297 


nation  of  downright  honesty.  There  was  Mjndert  Van 
Schaick,  wholly  incorruptible  and  devoted  to  the  public  inter- 
est. There  was  Dr.  McNevin,  too  much  taken  up  with  sci- 
ence to  think  of  making  money.  There  was  Dr.  Augustine 
Smith,  who  brought  to  the  tasks  of  his  office  large  knowledge 
and  an  integrity  beyond  question.  There  were  other  men  in 
the  Common  Council  worthy  by  their  character  to  be  the  as- 
sociates of  these,  and  there  was  no  complaint  of  corruption  or 
malversation  of  any  sort  in  our  municipal  affairs.  We  were 
all  proud  of  our  Common  Council.  It  was  an  honor  to  belong 
to  such  a  body  of  men.  I  doubt  whether  the  affairs  of  any 
municipality  since  the  time  of  the  elder  Cato  have  ever  been 
administered  by  men  so  virtuous  and  intelligent  as  those  to 
whom  I  have  referred.  It  was  only  by  slow  gradations,  and 
after  many  years,  that  our  municipal  affairs  lapsed  into  that 
frightful  state  from  which  we  are  now  seeking  effectually  to 
reclaim  them. 

This,  fellow-citizens,  was  what  we  did  forty  years  ago,  and 
something  like  this,  if  by  the  blessing  of  God  we  can  act  heart- 
ily and  vigorously  in  concert,  we  may  do  now. 


LITERARY  MISSIONARIES.* 


IT  is  my  office  this  evening  to  introduce  to  this  audience, 
which  I  am  glad  to  see  so  numerous,  a  native  of  the  British 
Islands,  a  kinsman  of  ours  by  race,  whose  comments  on  a  great 
work  of  the  greatest  poet  of  modern  times  we  have  not  only 
come  to  hear,  but  whose  own  character  and  genius  we  are  as- 
sembled to  honor.  For,  greatly  as  we  admire  his  genius,  we 
no  less  admire  the  noble  purposes  in  which  it  has  employed  it- 
self. In  one  of  his  poems  Walter  Scott  has  said  that  Dryden 
"  profaned  his  God-given  strength."  The  countryman  of  Scott 
who  addresses  us  to-night  has  hallowed  his  God-given  strength 
by  putting  it  under  the  direction  of  the  most  generous  aims — 
by  using  it  in  the  grand  endeavor  to  make  his  fellow-men  bet- 
ter and  happier.  It  is  not  as  the  mere  contributor  to  our  en- 
tertainment that  we  admire  him  ;  we  reverence  him  as  a  bene- 
factor of  mankind. 

When  I  think  of  the  eminent  persons  who  of  late  have  vis- 
ited our  continent  from  the  British  Islands,  with  the  view  of 
addressing  our  public  assemblies,  my  mind  is  carried  forward 
to  a  state  of  things  which  in  future  years  will  be  almost  certain 
to  result  from  the  relations  borne  to  each  other  by  the  differ- 
ent regions  in  which  our  language  is  spoken.  In  the  early 
times  of  Greece,  at  the  very  birth  of  Greek  literature,  when 

*  From  remarks  at  a  lecture  of  George  MacDonald  on  "  Hamlet,"  introducing 
the  lecturer,  New  York,  1872. 


LITERARY  MISSIONARIES. 


299 


that  remarkable  people,  the  Greek  race,  were  scattered  in 
cities  on  almost  every  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  and  on  all  its 
isles,  they  acknowledged  the  bond  of  a  common  language,  and 
regarded  each  other  as  brethren.  Before  the  use  of  letters  had 
become  common,  a  tribe  of  minstrels  had  arisen,  who  jour- 
neyed by  land  and  sea,  from  coast  to  coast,  from  isle  to  isle, 
wherever  the  Hellenic  stock  had  planted  its  colonies,  and  sang 
the  traditions  of  the  past,  delighting  vast  multitudes  with  re- 
citals of  wonderful  adventure,  and  examples  of  heroism,  and 
love  of  country.  These  were  the  lecturers  of  those  early  days. 
Something  like  this,  although  on  a  vaster  scale,  is  beginning  to 
result  from  the  wide  dispersion  of  that  branch  of  the  human 
family  the  language  of  whose  firesides  is  English.  As  the  dif- 
ferent communities,  which  they  have  planted  on  different  con- 
tinents and  islands,  in  different  belts  of  latitude,  and  under  dif- 
ferent constellations,  become  great  and  populous  and  advance 
in  civilization,  their  eminent  men — their  expounders  of  the 
laws  of  universal  nature,  their  reconcilers  of  apparently  dis- 
cordant truths,  their  teachers  of  human  duty,  their  inquirers 
into  the  traditions  of  the  past — will  go  forth  to  stand  before 
vast  audiences,  in  regions  distant  by  a  whole  hemisphere  from 
that  in  which  they  themselves  were  trained,  and  speak  to 
hushed  thousands  concerning  subjects  to  which  they  have 
given  the  study  of  their  lives.  Then  will  the  native  of  Van- 
couver's Island  address  the  assembled  men  and  women  of  Aus- 
tralia, and  the  chemist  of  Nova  Scotia  will  perform  his  brill- 
iant experiments  before  audiences  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
The  people  of  these  regions  will  demand  the  corporeal  pres- 
ence of  those  whose  renown  fills  the  circle  of  the  globe,  and, 
by  the  aid  of  even  more  rapid  means  of  communication  than 
we  now  enjoy,  the  call  will  be  obeyed. 

VOL.  II. — 2O 


SHAKESPEARE.* 


IN  a  part  of  this  republic,  which  within  a  few  years  has 
been  added  to  our  Union,  lying  between  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  the  western  sea,  are  yet  standing  a  few  groves  of  a  pecu- 
liar kind  of  tree,  prodigious  in  height  and  bulk,  and  seemingly 
produced  by  nature  to  show  mankind  to  what  size  a  tree  can 
attain  in  a  favorable  soil  and  a  congenial  climate,  with  no 
enemy  to  lay  the  axe  to  its  root.  The  earth,  in  its  most  fertile 
spots,  in  its  oldest  forests,  and  under  its  mildest  skies,  has 
nothing  like  them — no  stems  of  such  vast  dimensions,  no  sum- 
mits towering  so  high  and  casting  their  shadows  so  far,  putting 
forth  their  new  leaves  and  ripening  their  seed-vessels  in  the 
region  of  the  clouds.  The  traveller  who  enters  these  mighty 
groves  almost  expects  to  see  some  huge  son  of  Anak  stalking 
in  the  broad  alleys  between  their  gigantic  trunks,  or  some 
mammoth  or  mastodon  browsing  on  the  lower  branches. 

So  it  is  with  those  great  minds  which  the  Maker  of  all 
sometimes  sends  upon  the  earth  and  among  mankind,  as  if  to 
show  us  of  what  vast  enlargement  the  faculties  of  the  human 
intellect  are  capable,  if  but  rarely  in  this  stage  of  our  being, 
yet  at  least  in  that  which  follows  the  present  life,  when  the 
imperfections  and  infirmities  of  the  material  frame,, which  is 
now  the  dwelling  of  the  spirit,  shall  neither  clog  its  motions 

*  From  an  address  on  the  unveiling  of  Shakespeare's  statue  in  the  Central  Park, 
May  22,  1872. 


SHAKESPEARE. 


301 


nor  keep  back  its  growth.  Such  a  great  mind  was  that  of 
Shakespeare.  An  imagination  so  creative,  a  reason  so  vigor- 
ous, a  wisdom  so  clear  and  comprehensive,  taking  views  of 
life  and  character  and  duty  so  broad  and  just  and  true,  a  spirit 
so  fiery  and  at  the  same  time  so  gentle,  such  acuteness  of  ob- 
servation and  such  power  of  presenting  to  other  minds  what 
is  observed — such  a  combination  of  qualities  seems  to  afford 
us,  as  we  contemplate  it,  a  glimpse  of  what,  in  certain  respects, 
the  immortal  part  of  man  shall  be  when  every  cause  that  dims 
its  vision,  or  weakens  its  energy,  or  fetters  its  activity,  or  checks 
its  expansion  shall  be  wholly  done  away,  and  that  subtiler  es- 
sence shall  be  left  to  the  full  and  free  exercise  of  the  powers 
with  which  God  endowed  it. 

It  has  occurred  to  me,  in  thinking  what  I  should  say  at  this 
time,  that  the  writings  of  Shakespeare  contained  proofs  that, 
if  he  had  but  given  his  attention  to  the  work  of  preparing  for 
usefulness  and  distinction  in  other  pursuits  than  that  in  which 
he  acquired  his  fame,  he  might  have  achieved  in  some  of  them 
a  renown  almost  equal  to  that  which  attends  his  dramatic 
writings.  The  dramatic  poet,  who  puts  into  the  mouths  of 
personages  whom  he  would  represent  as  great  beyond  the 
common  stature  of  greatness  words  and  sentiments  correspond- 
ing to  their  exalted  character,  must,  in  order  to  do  this,  pos- 
sess an  intellectual  character  somewhat  like  theirs,  must  in 
some  sort  partake  of  their  greatness.  I  wonder  not,  therefore, 
that  some,  who  have  insisted  that  Shakespeare  did  not  write 
the  plays  attributed  to  him,  should,  in  searching  for  the. true 
author,  have  fixed  upon  Lord  Bacon,  finding  in  them  passages 
which  may  be  plausibly  referred  to  the  father  of  modern  phi- 
losophy and  the  most  profound  jurist  of  his  age.  I  do  not  ac- 
cept their  theory,  but  I  say  to  myself,  when  I  read  what  they 
have  quoted  from  his  writings  in  support  of  it :  "  What  a  giant 
among  philosophers  was  lost  in  this  dramatic  poet!  what  an 
able  jurist  and  legislator  allowed  the  faculties  which  would 
have  made  him  such  to  slumber  while  he  employed  himself  in 
writing  for  the  stage !  " 


302  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

So,  when  I  read  the  passages  gathered  from  his  plays  to 
show  that  Shakespeare  anticipated  Harvey  in  his  knowledge 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in  its  channels  through  the  ani- 
mal frame,  my  reflection  is  that  here  was  an  embryo  physiolo- 
gist, endowed  beyond  his  fellow-men  with  an  instinctive  per- 
ception of  the  interior  mechanism  of  the  human  body,  and  the 
power  of  detecting  its  subtile  workings,  hidden  from  man  for 
so  many  ages  from  the  birth  of  our  species.  Not  the  less,  nay, 
perhaps  still  more  remarkable,  was  the  insight  of  Shakespeare 
into  the  different,  even  the  most  subtile,  forms  of  mental  dis- 
temperature,  an  insight  shown  in  his  portraiture  of  the  mad- 
ness of  Hamlet,  that  of  Ophelia,  and  that  of  King  Lear — all  how 
distinctly  drawn,  yet  each  how  diverse  from  the  others ! 
What  a  physician  might  he  not  have  made  to  an  insane  asylum  ! 
How  tenderly  and  how  wisely  might  he  not  have  ministered 
to  the  mind  diseased — he  who  so  shrewdly  traced  its  wander- 
ings and  was  so  touched  with  a  feeling  of  its  infirmities !  How 
gently  might  he  not  have  led  it  away  from  its  illusions  and 
guided  it  back  to  sanity ! 

Moreover,  if  Shakespeare  had  worn  the  clerical  gown,  what 
a  preacher  of  righteousness  he  would  have  become,  and  how 
admirably  and  impressively  he  would  have  enforced  the  lessons 
of  human  life ! — he  who  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cardinal  Wolsey 
the  pathetic  words : 

"  Had  I  but  served  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  served  my  king,  he  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies." 

I  am  sure  that,  if  those  who  deny  to  Shakespeare  the  credit 
of  writing  his  own  dramas  had  .thought  of  ascribing  them  to 
the  judicious  Hooker  or  to  the  pious  Bishop  Andrews  instead 
of  to  Lord  Bacon,  they  might  have  made  a  specious  show  of 
proof  by  carefully  culled  extracts  from  his  writings.  Nay,  if 
Jeremy  Taylor,  whose  prose  is  so  full  of  poetry,  had  not  been 
born  a  generation  too  late,  I  would  engage,  in  the  same  way, 
to  put  a  plausible  face  on  the  theory  that  the  plays  of  Shake- 


SHAKESPEARE.  303 

speare,  except,  perhaps,  some  passages  wickedly  interpolated, 
were  composed  by  the  eloquent  and  devout  author  of  "  Holy 
Living  and  Dying." 

The  fame  of  our  great  dramatist  fills  the  civilized  world. 
Among  the  poets  he  is  what  the  cataract  of  Niagara  is  among 
waterfalls.  As  those  who  cannot  take  the  journey  to  Niagara, 
that  they  may  behold  its  vast  breadth  of  green  waters  plung- 
ing from  the  lofty  precipice  into  the  abyss  below,  content 
themselves  with  such  an  idea  of  its  majesty  and  beauty  as 
they  can  obtain  from  a  picture  or  an  engraving,  so  those  who 
cannot  enjoy  the  writings  of  Shakespeare  in  the  original  Eng- 
lish, read  him  in  translations,  which  have  the  effect  of  looking 
at  a  magnificent  landscape  through  a  morning  mist.  All  lan- 
guages have  their  versions  of  Shakespeare.  The  most  eminent 
men  of  genius  in  Germany  have  been  his  translators  or  com- 
mentators. In  France  they  began  by  sneering  at  him  with 
Voltaire,  and  they  end  by  regarding  him  in  a  transport  of 
wonder  with  Taine.  He  stands  before  them  like  a  mighty 
mountain,  filling  with  its  vastness  half  the  heavens,  its  head  in 
an  eternally  serene  atmosphere,  while  on  its  sides  burrow  the 
fox  and  the  marmot,  and  tangled  thickets  obstruct  the  steps  of 
the  climber.  The  French  critic,  while  amazed  at  the  grandeur 
and  variety  of  its  forms,  cannot  help  suffering  his  attention 
to  wander  to  the  ant-heaps  and  mole-holes  scattered  on  its 
broad  flanks. 

To  the  great  chorus  of  admiration  which  rises  from  all 
civilized  nations  we  this  day  add  our  voices  as  we  erect  to 
the  memory  of  Shakespeare,  in  a  land  distant  from  that  of  his 
birth,  yet  echoing  through  its  vast  extent  with  the  accents  of 
his  mother-tongue,  the  effigy  of  his  bodily  form  and  features. 
Those  who  profess  to  read  in  the  aspect  of  the  individual  the 
qualities  of  his  intellectual  and  moral  character,  have  always 
delighted  to  trace  in  the  face,  of  which  we  this  day  unveil  an 
image  to  the  public  gaze,  the  manifest  signs  of  his  greatness. 
Read  what  Lavater  wrote  a  hundred  years  since,  and  you  shall 
see  that  he  discovers  in  this  noble  countenance  a  promise  of 


304 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


all  that  the  critic  finds  in  his  writings.  Come  down  to  the 
phrenologists  of  the  present  day,  and  they  tell  you  of  the  visi- 
ble indications  of  his  boundless  invention,  his  universal  sympa- 
thy, his  lofty  idealism,  his  wit,  his  humor,  his  imagination,  and 
every  other  faculty  that  conspired  to  produce  his  matchless 
works. 

This  counterfeit  presentment  of  the  outward  form  of  Shake- 
speare we  offer  to-day  to  the  public  of  New  York  as  an  orna- 
ment of  the  beautiful  pleasure-ground  in  which  they  take  so 
just  a  pride.  It  has  been  cast  in  bronze,  a  material  indestructi- 
ble by  time,  in  the  hope  that  perchance  it  may  last  as  long  as 
his  writings.  It  is  nobly  executed  by  the  artist,  and  with  a 
deep  feeling  of  the  greatness  of  his  subject.  One  profound 
regret  saddens  this  ceremony — that  our  friend  Hackett,  who 
was  foremost  in  procuring  this  expression  of  our  homage  to 
the  memory  of  Shakespeare,  is  not  with  us,  but  sleeps  with 
the  great  author  whose  writings  he  loved  and  studied,  and  in- 
terpreted both  to  the  ear  and  the  eye. 

The  spot  in  which  this  statue  is  placed  will  henceforth  be 
associated  with  numberless  ideas  and  images  called  up  to  the 
mind  of  the  visitor  by  the  name  of  Shakespeare.  To  all  whose 
imagination  is  easily  kindled  into  activity  it  will  seem  forever 
haunted  by  the  personages  whom  he  created  and  who  live  in 
his  dramas:  the  grave  magician  Prospero  and  his  simple- 
hearted  daughter  Miranda,  and  his  dainty  spirit  Ariel,  the 
white-haired  Lear  and  the  loving  Cordelia,  the  jealous  Moor 
and  the  gentle  Desdemona,  Imogen  and  Rosalind,  and  the  ma- 
jestic shadow  of  Coriolanus.  Before  the  solitary  passer-by 
will  rise  the  burly  figure  of  the  merry  knight,  Falstaff,  and 
round  about  this  statue  will  flit  the  slight  forms  of  Slender 
and  Shallow  and  Dogberry.  To  those  who  chance  to  tread 
these  walks  by  moonlight,  the  ghost  of  the  royal  Dane  may 
shape  itself  from  the  vapors  of  the  night  and  again  dis- 
appear. But  may  the  sound  of  battle  never  be  heard  here, 
nor  the  herbage  be  trampled  by  the  rude  heel  of  the  popu- 
lace in  its  fury  to  disturb  the  fairy  court  of  Oberon  and 


SHAKESPEARE.  305 

Titania,  and  scare  the  little  people  from  their  dances  on  the 
greensward. 

To  memories  and  associations  like  these  we  devote  this 
spot  from  henceforth  and  forever. 

SHAKESPEARE,  though  he  cannot  be  called  an  American 
poet,  as  he  was  not  born  here  and  never  saw  our  continent,  is 
yet  a  poet  of  the  Americans.  It  will  be  granted  that,  if  all  the 
English  were  to  migrate  to  some  other  region,  and  the  French 
were  to  come  in  and  occupy  their  place,  Shakespeare  could 
by  no  means  be  called  a  French  poet,  but  would,  by  the  just- 
est  title,  belong  to  the  race  which  had  migrated.  By  parity 
of  reasoning,  if  only  a  part  of  the  English  race  migrate,  they 
carry  with  them  not  only  their  language  but  its  literature  ; 
they  carry  with  them  the  poets  who  flourished  before  their 
migration,  and  who  are  as  truly  theirs  as  they  are  the  poets  of 
those  who  remain.  Shakespeare  died  while  the  colonists  of 
Jamestown,  Virginia,  were  building  their  cabins ;  he  died 
seven  years  before  the  first  white  child  was  born  on  the  island 
now  covered  with  the  dwellings  of  this  great  city  ;  he  died 
four  years  before  the  landing  of  the  pilgrims  on  the  Plymouth 
Rock.  We  Americans  may  therefore  claim  an  equal  property 
in  the  great  English  poet  with  those  who  remained  in  the  Old' 
World — with  you,  Mr.  President,  and  you,  gentlemen,  natives 
of  the  British  Isles. 

It  is  common  to  speak  of  the  blood  of  the  ancestor  as  flow- 
ing in  the  veins  of  his  descendants,  and  the  expression  has  a 
certain  truth  in  it.  The  tissues  of  the  brain,  the  seat  of  wit 
and  of  imagination,  are  woven  of  fibres  lent  by  our  progeni- 
tors. The  generation  which  now  walks  the  stage  of  the  world 
is  the  reproduction,  the  re-entrance,  in  a  certain  sort,  of  the 
generation  which  has  made  its  exit.  The  blood  that  now 
warms  American  hearts  and  gushes  through  American  arte- 
ries was  once — nearly  three  hundred  years  ago,  when  it  ran  in 
the  veins  of  our  ancestors  in  the  Old  World,  and  while  Shake- 
speare was  yet  alive — made  to  tingle  by  his  potent  words.  It 


306  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

coursed  slowly  or  swiftly  through  its  purple  channels  at  the 
will  of  that  great  master  of  the  passions.  It  was  quickened 
and  made  to  glow  with  indignation  at  the  conduct  of  Lear's 
ungrateful  daughters ;  it  curdled  and  was  chilled  at  the  sight 
of  the  ghost  of  the  royal  Dane,  and  of  the  sleep-walking  mur- 
deress in  "  Macbeth  "  ;  it  was  resolved  to  tears  at  the  fate  of 
the  innocent  Desdemona.  What  American,  therefore,  who  is 
willing  to  acknowledge  that  his  ancestors  came  from  the  Old 
World,  will  fail  to  claim  Shakespeare  as  his  own  poet  ? 

It  is  fortunate  that  we  have  in  our  literature  writings  of 
such  superlative  excellence,  so  universally  read  and  studied, 
and,  by  the  exercise  of  memory,  so  incorporated  into  our  own 
minds,  as  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare.  They  keep  alive  the 
connection  between  the  present  and  the  remote  past,  and  stay 
the  hurrying  process  of  change  in  certain  respects  in  which 
change  is  undesirable.  Language  is  an  unstable  thing,  and, 
like  everything  dependent  on  usage,  tends  to  constant  varia- 
tion ;  but  this  tendency  has  no  advantage  save  as  it  is  demand- 
ed by  the  introduction  of  new  ideas.  There  are  critics  who 
affirm  that  the  English  language  reached  its  perfection  of  ex- 
pressiveness and  copiousness  in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  whoever  reads  the  authors  of  that  age  will  see  little  cause 
to  wonder  at  this  opinion.  Let  us  congratulate  ourselves  that 
we  have  such  an  author  as  Shakespeare,  so  admired,  so  loved, 
to  protect  our  noble  language  against  the  capricious  innova- 
tions of  those  who  read  only  the  authors  of  yesterday,  and 
that,  by  dwelling  upon  what  he  wrote,  the  speech  of  the  mas- 
ter minds  of  his  age  continues  familiar  to  our  ears.  There  is 
yet  another  advantage — that,  by  tending  to  preserve  the  iden- 
tity of  language  in  regions  remote  from  each  other  where  Eng- 
lish is  spoken,  it  keeps  alive  the  remembrance  of  kindred  and 
brotherhood,  and  multiplies  the  pledges  of  amity  and  peace  be- 
tween the  nations.* 


*  From  a  speech  made  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the  St.  George's  Society,  April 
23,  1870. 


SHAKESPEARE.  307 

THE  toast  is  Shakespeare ;  and  what  a  host  of  recollections 
is  called  up  by  that  name — associations  connected  not  only 
with  the  marvellous  works  which  Shakespeare  has  left  us, 
but  with  the  great  men  who  lived  in  his  time !  For  that 
age  produced  in  England  men  of  towering  intellect.  There 
were  giants  in  those  days  —  Bacon,  the  prince  of  philoso- 
phers; Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  eminent  as  a  navigator,  a  com- 
mander,  and  an  author ;  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  of  whom  Hallam 
has  said  that  he  was  the  first  writer  of  good  prose  in  our 
language ;  Sir  Thomas  Moore,  great  in  jurisprudence  ;  Spen- 
ser, illustrious  in  poetry  —  a  host  of  eminent  divines  and 
a  galaxy  of  dramatic  authors  such  as  England  has  not  seen 
since. 

Naturalists  tell  us  that  in  the  acorn  lie  folded  and  wrapped 
up  the  embryos  of  thousands,  nay,  millions,  of  trees,  every 
acorn  being  a  possible  tree,  with  a  sturdy  stem  and  wide- 
spreading  branches,  and  the  power  of  indefinite  multipli- 
cation, by  means  of  successive  harvests  of  acorns  trom  year 
to  year.  So  that  in  the  little  cup  and  ball  which  you  hold 
in  your  hand  you  grasp  the  mighty  forests  of  future  years, 
tall  and  wide  enough  to  cover  the  earth,  majestic  groves 
of  such  extent  as  to  clothe  every  mountain-side,  darken 
every  valley,  embower  every  river,  and  overhang  every 
sea-coast.  So  it  is  with  the  generation  which  produced 
Shakespeare,  glorious  Shakespeare,  master  of  the  passions, 
with  uncontrolled  dominion  over  hope  and  fear,  pity  and 
terror,  and  endowed  from  above  with  a  double  portion  of 
the  creative  power.  In  his  time  we  were  all  in  Europe — 
all  of  us;  the  millions  who  now  inhabit  our  swarming 
cities,  dig  in  our  rich  mines,  till  our  broad  valleys,  navigate 
our  great  rivers  and  lakes,  or,  to  come  nearer,  build  our 
public  edifices,  paint  our  pictures,  and  spin  our  verses  —  all 
wrapped  up  in  that  generation  of  the  Old  World  which 
laughed  the  first  laugh  at  Falstaff's  wit,  and  shed  the  first 
tears  drawn  from  men's  eyes  by  the  fate  of  Desdemona. 
Who,  then,  shall  deny  to  us  born  in  this  hemisphere  a  share  in 


308  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  glory  of  those  who  claim  Shakespeare  as  their  country- 
man? 

I  have  sometimes  fancied  what  would  become  of  Shake- 
speare and  his  renown  in  case  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the 
origin  of  races  should  hold  good,  which  I  by  no  means  ad- 
mit, and,  through  the  process  of  evolution  and  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  a  race  of  beings  should  arise  on  the  earth,  while 
man  is  yet  upon  it,  as  much  superior  to  man  as  man  is  supe- 
rior to  the  monkey.  Then  will  happen  what  was  imagined 
by  Pope  and  expressed  by  him  in  these  well-known  lines  : 

"  Superior  beings,  when,  of  late,  they  saw 
A  mortal  man  unfolding  nature's  law, 
Admired  such  wisdom  in  an  earthly  shape, 
And  showed  a  Newton  as  we  show  an  ape." 

Suppose  that  a  genius  like  Shakespeare  should  at  that  time 
remain  on  the  earth — a  man  endowed  with  like  eminent  gifts 
of  mind — what  will  the  superior  race  of  those  days  do  with  a 
creature  as  much  below  them  in  the  scale  of  intellect  as  a  very 
intelligent  monkey  is  below  the  race  of  human  kind  ?  This 
specimen  of  humanity  in  its  perfection  would,  of  course,  be 
led  about  by  a  chain  and  made  to  exhibit  himself — perform  his 
tricks,  they  would  probably  phrase  it — for  the  entertainment 
of  those  whose  captive  and  drudge  he  would  be.  We  might 
then  imagine  them  to  say  to  him  :  "  Come,  Shakespeare,  let  us 
have  Hamlet's  soliloquy,"  or  something  to  that  effect.  "  Very 
fine  for  a  beast ! "  would  they  exclaim  who  witnessed  the  ex- 
hibition ;  "  very  clever  indeed  !  "  And  then  a  scene  from  the 
"  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  or  its  equivalent ;  and,  after  the 
spectators  were  weary  of  the  sport,  the  captive  would  be  led 
off  to  be  fed  or  to  sleep  in  his  kennel. 

But  in  the  mean  time,  while  we  are  waiting  for  this  consum- 
mation, while  the  parts  or  particles  which  by  force  of  natural 
selection  are  getting  ready  to  form  themselves  into  the  more 
perfect  race  of  future  times,  let  us  continue  to  delight  in 


SHAKESPEARE. 


309 


Shakespeare  as  we  have  him — the  poet  eminent  beyond  all 
other  poets,  and  not  likely  to  be  surpassed  while  the  human 
race  retains  its  present  rank  on  the  earth,  and  man  is  still 
what  another  poet  has  called  him — "  Lord  of  the  fowl  and 
the  brute."  * 

*  From  a  later  speech  before  the  St.  George's  Society. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTTV 


THE  Scottish  residents  of  this  city,  whose  public  spirit  and 
reverence  for  genius  have  moved  them  to  present  to  the  peo- 
ple of  New  York  the  statue  of  their  countryman  which  has 
just  now  been  unveiled  to  the  public  gaze,  have  honored  me 
with  a  request  that  I  should  so  far  take  part  in  these  ceremo- 
nies as  to  speak  a  few  words  concerning  the  great  poet  and 
novelist,  of  whose  renown  they  are  so  justly  proud. 

As  I  look  round  on  this  assembly  I  perceive  few  persons  of 
my  own  age — few  who  can  remember,  as  I  can,  the  rising  and 
setting  of  this  brilliant  luminary  of  modern  literature.  I  well 
recollect  the  time  when  Scott,  then  thirty-four  years  of  age, 
gave  to  the  world  his  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  the  first  of 
his  works  which  awakened  the  enthusiastic  admiration  that 
afterward  attended  all  he  wrote.  In  that  poem  the  spirit  of 
the  old  Scottish  ballads — the  most  beautiful  of  their  class — 
lived  again.  In  it  we  had  all  their  fire,  their  rapid  narrative, 
their  unlabored  graces,  their  pathos,  animating  a  story  to 
which  he  had  given  a  certain  epic  breadth  and  unity.  We 
read  with  scarcely  less  delight  his  poem  of  "  Marmion,"  and 
soon  afterward  the  youths  and  maidens  of  our  country  hung 
with  rapture  over  the  pages  of  his  "  Lady  of  the  Lake."  I 
need  not  enumerate  his  other  poems,  but  this  I  will  say  of  them 

*  An  address  on  the  unveiling  of  the  statue  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  Central  Park, 
November  4,  1872. 


577?    WALTER  SCOTT.  31 1 

all,  that  no  other  metrical  narratives  in  our  language  seem  to 
me  to  possess  an  equal  power  of  enchaining  the  attention  of 
the  reader,  and  carrying  him  on  from  incident  to  incident  with 
such  entire  freedom  from  weariness.  These  works,  printed  in 
cheap  editions,  were  dispersed  all  over  our  country;  they 
found  their  way  to  almost  every  fireside,  and  their  popularity 
raised  up,  both  here  and  in  Great  Britain,  a  multitude  of  imita- 
tors now  forgotten. 

This  power  over  the  mind  of  the  reader  was  soon  to  be  ex- 
emplified  in  a  more  remarkable  manner,  and  when,  at  the  age 
of  forty-three,  Scott  gave  to  the  world,  without  any  indication 
of  its  authorship,  his  romance  of  "  Waverley,"  all  perceived  that 
a  new  era  in  the  literature  of  fiction  had  begun.  "  Here,"  they 
said,  "  is  a  genius  of  a  new  order.  What  wealth  of  materials, 
what  free  mastery  in  moulding  them  into  shape,  what  inven- 
tion, humor,  pathos,  vivid  portraiture  of  character — nothing 
overcharged  or  exaggerated,  yet  all  distinct,  spirited,  and  life- 
like !  Are  we  not,"  they  asked,  "  to  have  other  works  by  the 
same  hand  ?  " 

The  desire  thus  expressed  was  soon  gratified.  The  ex- 
pected romances  came  forth  with  a  rapidity  which  amazed 
their  readers.  Some,  it  is  true,  ascribed  them  to  Scott  as  the 
only  man  who  could  write  them.  "  It  cannot  be,"  said  others ; 
"  Scott  is  occupied  with  writing  histories  and  poems,  and 
editing  work  after  work  which  require  great  labor  and  re- 
search ;  he  has  no  time  for  writing  romances  like  these."  So 
he  went  on,  throwing  off  these  remarkable  works  as  if  the 
writing  of  them  had  been  but  a  pastime,  and  fairly  bombarding 
the  world  with  romances  from  his  mysterious  covert.  It  was 
like  what  in  the  neighborhood  of  this  city  we  see  on  a  fine 
evening  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  when  rocket  after  rocket  rises 
from  the  distant  horizon  and  bursts  in  the  air,  throwing  off  to 
right  and  left  jets  of  flame  and  fireballs  of  every  brilliant  hue, 
yet  whose  are  the  hands  that  launch  them  we  know  not.  So 
we  read  and  wondered,  and  lost  ourselves  in  conjectures  as 
to  the  author  who  ministered  to  our  delight ;  and,  when  at 


312 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


length,  at  a  public  dinner  in  the  year  1827,  Scott  avowed  him- 
self  to  be  the  sole  author  of  the  "  Waverley  Novels,"  the  in- 
terest which  we  felt  at  this  disclosure  was  hardly  less  than 
that  with  which  we  heard  of  the  issue  of  the  great  battle  of 
Waterloo. 

I  have  seen  a  design  by  some  artist  in  which  Scott  is  shown 
surrounded  by  the  personages  whom  in  his  poems  and  ro- 
mances he  called  into  being.  They  formed  a  vast  crowd,  face 
beyond  face,  each  with  its  characteristic  expression — a  multi- 
tude so  great  that  it  reminded  me  of  the  throng — the  cloud  I 
may  call  it — of  cherubim  which  in  certain  pictures  on  the  walls 
of  European  churches  surround  the  Virgin  Mother.  For  forty 
years  has  Scott  lain  in  his  grave,  and  now  his  countrymen 
place  in  this  park  an  image  of  the  noble  brow,  so  fortunately 
copied  by  the  artist,  beneath  which  the  personages  of  his 
imagination  grew  into  being.  Shall  we  say  grew,  as  if  they 
sprang  up  spontaneously  in  his  mind,  like  plants  from  a  fruitful 
soil,  while  his  fingers  guided  the  pen  that  noted  down  their 
words  and  recorded  their  acts?  Or  should  we  imagine  the 
faculties  of  his  mind  to  have  busied  themselves  at  his  bidding 
in  the  chambers  of  that  active  brain,  and  gradually  to  have 
moulded  the  characters  of  his  wonderful  fictions  to  their  per- 
fect form  ?  At  all  events,  let  us  say  that  He  who  breathed  the 
breath  of  life  into  the  frame  of  which  a  copy  is  before  us,  im- 
parted with  that  breath  a  portion  of  his  own  creative  power. 

And  now,  as  the  statue  of  Scott  is  set  up  in  this  beautiful 
park,  which  a  few  years  since  possessed  no  human  associations 
historical  or  poetic  connected  with  its  shades,  its  lawns,  its 
rocks,  and  its  waters,  these  grounds  become  peopled  with  new 
memories.  Henceforth  the  silent  earth  at  this  spot  will  be 
eloquent  of  old  traditions,  the  airs  that  stir  the  branches  of  the 
trees  will  whisper  of  feats  of  chivalry  to  the  visitor.  All  that 
vast  crowd  of  ideal  personages  created  by  the  imagination  of 
Scott  will  enter  with  his  sculptured  effigy  and  remain — Fergus 
and  Flora  Maclvor,  Meg  Merrilies  and  Dirk  Hatteraik,  the 
Antiquary  and  his  Sister,  and  Edie  Ochiltree,  Rob  Roy  and 


SfX    WALTER  SCOTT. 


313 


Helen  Macgregor,  and  Baillie  Jarvie  and  Dandie  Dinmont, 
and  Diana  Vernon  and  Old  Mortality — but  the  night  would 
be  upon  us  before  I  could  go  through  the  muster-roll  of  this 
great  army.  They  will  pass  in  endless  procession  around  the 
statue  of  him  in  whose  prolific  brain  they  had  their  birth, 
until  the  language  which  we  speak  shall  perish,  and  the  spot 
on  which  we  stand  shall  be  again  a  woodland  wilderness. 


ROBERT  BURNS; 


THIS  evening  the  memory  of  Burns  will  be  celebrated  as  it 
never  was  before.  His  fame,  from  the  time  when  he  first  ap- 
peared before  the  world  as  a  poet,  has  been  growing  and 
brightening,  as  the  morning  brightens  into  the  perfect  day. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  his  merits  were  so  freely  ac- 
knowledged as  now  ;  when  the  common  consent  of  the  literary 
world  placed  him  so  high,  or  spoke  his  praises  with  so  little 
intermixture  of  disparagement ;  when  the  anniversary  of  his 
birth  could  have  awakened  so  general  and  fervent  an  enthu- 
siasm. 

If  we  could  imagine  a  human  being  endowed  with  the 
power  of  making  himself,  through  the  medium  of  his  senses,  a 
witness  of  whatever  is  passing  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  what 
a  series  of  festivities,  what  successive  manifestations  of  the 
love  and  admiration  which  all  who  speak  our  language  bear 

*  Mr.  Bryant  was  almost  invariably  a  guest  at  the  annual  festivals  of  the  Burns 
Club,  of  New  York,  and  was  quite  as  invariably  called  upon  to  say  a  word  in  honor 
of  the  national  poet.  He  once  gave  as  a  reason  for  attending  these  festivals  the  fact 
that  he  had  Scotch  blood  in  his  veins.  "  Some  hundred  and  fifty  years  since,"  he  said, 
"  there  came  from  Scotland  to  this  country  a  young  man  of  the  name  of  Keith,  edu- 
cated at  Marechal  College,  Aberdeen,  who  for  more  than  fifty  years  was  pastor  of  a 
New  England  church,  dying  at  a  good  old  age,  and  leaving  many  descendants.  Him 
I  claim  as  an  ancestor  of  my  family  ;  but  this  is  a  slender  foundation  on  which  to  build 
a  title  to  be  heard  in  response  to  a  toast  in  honor  of  the  prince  of  Scottish  poets.  It 
is  much  as  if  the  keeper  of  an  apple-stall  in  the  street  should  think,  with  a  capital 
of  ten  dollars  saved  by  his  vocation,  to  set  up  as  an  importer  of  cargoes  of  fruit 
from  the  West  Indies. 

"  From  distinguished  literary  men  of  that  country  to  whom  I  was  not  personally 


ROBERT  BURNS.  315 

to  the  great  Scottish  poet,  would  present  themselves  to  his 
observation,  accompanying  the  shadow  of  this  night  in  its  cir- 
cuit round  the  earth  !  Some  twelve  hours  before  this  time  he 
would  have  heard  the  praises  of  Burns  sung  on  the  banks  of 
the  Ganges — the  music  flowing  out  of  the  open  windows  on 
the  soft  evening  air  of  that  region  and  mingling  with  the 
murmurs  of  the  sacred  river.  A  little  later,  he  might  have 
heard  the  same  sounds  from  the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates  ;  later 
still,  from  the  southern  extremity  of  Africa,  under  constella- 
tions strange  to  our  eyes — the  stars  of  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere— and  almost  at  the  same  moment  from  the  rocky  shores 
of  the  Ionian  Islands.  Next  they  would  have  been  heard  from 
the  orange-groves  of  Malta,  and  from  the  winter  colony  of 
English  and  Americans  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber.  Then,  in 
its  turn,  the  Seine  takes  up  the  strain  ;  and  what  a  chorus  rises 
from  the  British  Isles — from  every  ocean-mart  and  river  and 
mountain-side,  with  a  distant  response  from  the  rocks  of  Gib- 
raltar !  Last,  in  the  Old  World,  on  its  westernmost  verge,  the 
observer  whom  I  have  imagined  would  have  heard  the  voice 
of  song  and  of  gladness  from  the  coasts  of  Liberia  and  Sierra 
Leone,  among  a  race  constitutionally  and  passionately  fond  of 
music,  and  to  which  we  have  given  our  language  and  litera- 
ture. 

In  the  New  World,  frozen  Newfoundland  has  already  led  in 

known  I  have  received  particular  kindness.  Many  years  since,  various  kind  mes- 
sages were  conveyed  to  me  from  the  poet  Thomas  Campbell.  When,  more  than 
thirty  years  since,  a  volume  of  my  verses  was  published  here,  it  came  into  the  hands 
of  Professor  John  Wilson,  who  did  it  the  honor  to  notice  it  at  great  length  in 
'  Blackwood's  Magazine,'  with  liberal  extracts,  accompanied  with  comments  of  so  eu- 
logistic a  character  that  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  refer  to  them.  Nor  should  I  fail 
to  mention  that  the  residents  in  this  country  of  Scottish  birth  have,  during  our  late  fear- 
ful Civil  War,  stood  firmly  and  unflinchingly  by  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  aided 
manfully  in  putting  down  the  rebellion,  and  resolutely  discountenanced  the  wicked 
doctrine  of  secession,  which  would  make  an  anarchy  of  the  best  government.  Still 
less  can  I  forget  that  some  of  the  most  distinguished  commanders  in  the  war  bear 
Scottish  names,  and  that  the  great  general  whose  mind  conceived  the  series  of  mili- 
tary operations  by  which  the  rebellion  was  suppressed,  and  whose  skill  carried  them 
into  successful  operation,  was  of  Scotch  descent." 

VOL.   II. — 21 


316  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

the  festival  of  this  night  ;  and  next,  those  who  dwell  where  the 
St.  Lawrence  holds  an  icy  mirror  to  the  stars ;  thence  it  has 
passed  to  the  hills  and  valleys  of  New  England  ;  and  now  it 
is  our  turn,  on  the  lordly  Hudson.  The  Schuylkill  will  follow, 
the  Potomac,  the  rivers  of  the  Carolinas ;  the  majestic  St. 
John's,  drawing  his  dark,  deep  waters  from  the  Everglades  ; 
the  borders  of  our  mighty  lakes,  the  beautiful  Ohio,  the  great 
Mississippi,  with  its  fountains  gushing  under  fields  of  snow, 
and  its  mouth  among  flowers  that  fear  not  the  frost.  Then 
will  our  festival,  in  its  westward  course,  cross  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  gather  in  joyous  assemblies  those  who  pasture  their 
herds  on  the  Columbia  and  those  who  dig  for  gold  on  the 
Sacramento. 

By  a  still  longer  interval,  it  will  pass  to  Australia,  lying  in 
her  distant  solitude  of  waters,  and  now  glowing  with  the  heats 
of  midsummer,  where,  I  feel,  the  zealous  countrymen  of  Burns 
will  find  the  short  night  of  the  season  too  short  for  their  fes- 
tivities. And  thus  will  this  commemoration  pursue  the  sunset 
round  the  globe,  and  follow  the  journey  of  the  evening  star 
till  that  gentle  planet  shines  on  the  waters  of  China. 

Well  has  our  great  poet  deserved  this  universal  commemo- 
ration— for  who  has  written  like  him  ?  What  poem  descriptive 
of  rural  manners  and  virtues,  rural  life  in  its  simplicity  and 
dignity — yet  without  a  single  false  outline  or  touch  of  false 
coloring — clings  to  our  memories  and  lives  in  our  bosoms  like 
his  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  ?  What  humorous  narrative 
in  verse  can  be  compared  with  his  "  Tarn  o'  Shanter  "  ?  From 
the  fall  of  Adam  to  his  time,  I  believe,  there  was  nothing  writ- 
ten in  the  vein  of  his  "  Mountain  Daisy  "  ;  others  have  caught 
his  spirit  from  that  poem,  but  who  among  them  all  has  ex- 
celled him?  Of  all  the  convivial  songs  I  have  ever  seen  in 
any  language,  there  is  none  so  overflowing  with  the  spirit  of 
mirth,  so  joyous,  so  contagious,  as  his  song  of  "  Willie  brewed 
a  Peck  o'  Maut."  What  love-songs  are  sweeter  and  tenderer 
than  those  of  Burns  ?  What  song  addresses  itself  so  movingly 
to  our  love  of  old  friends  and  our  pleasant  recollections  of  old 


ROBERT  BURNS. 


317 


days  as  his  "  Auld  Lang  Syne,"  or  to  the  domestic  affections 
so  powerfully  as  his  "  John  Anderson  "  ? 

You  heard  yesterday,  my  friends,  and  will  hear  again  to- 
night, better  things  said  of  the  genius  of  Burns  than  I  can  say. 
That  will  be  your  gain  and  mine.  But  there  is  one  observation 
which,  if  I  have  not  already  tried  your  patience  too  far,  I 
would  ask  your  leave  to  make.  If  Burns  was  thus  great 
among  poets,  it  was  not  because  he  stood  higher  than  they  by 
any  pre-eminence  of  a  creative  and  fertile  imagination.  Origi- 
nal, affluent,  and  active  his  imagination  certainly  was,  and  it 
was  always  kept  under  the  guidance  of  a  masculine  and  vigor- 
ous understanding;  but  it  is  the  feeling  which  lives  in  his 
poems  that  gives  them  their  supreme  mastery  over  the  minds 
of  men. 

Burns  was  thus  great  because,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  errors  of  his  after-life,  when  he  came  from  the  hand  that 
formed  him — I  say  it  with  the  profoundest  reverence — God 
breathed  into  him,  in  larger  measure  than  into  other  men,  the 
spirit  of  that  love  which  constitutes  his  own  essence,  and  made 
him  more  than  other  men — a  living  soul.  Burns  was  made 
by  the  greatness  of  his  sympathies — sympathies  acute  and  deli- 
cate, yet  large,  comprehensive,  boundless.  They  were  warm- 
est and  strongest  toward  those  of  his  own  kind,  yet  they  over- 
flowed upon  all  sentient  beings — upon  the  animals  in  his  stall ; 
upon  the  "  wee,  sleekit,  cowerin',  timorous  beastie  "  dislodged 
from  her  autumnal  covert;  upon  the  hare  wounded  by  the 
sportsman  ;  upon  the  very  field-flower,  overturned  by  his  share 
and  crushed  among  the  stubble.  And  in.  all  this  we  feel  that 
there  is  nothing  strained  or  exaggerated,  nothing  affected  or 
put  on,  nothing  childish  or  silly,  but  that  all  is  true,  genuine, 
healthy,  manly,  noble ;  we  honor,  we  venerate  the  poet  while 
we  read ;  we  take  the  expression  of  these  sympathies  to  our 
hearts  and  fold  it  in  our  memory  forever.* 


*  From  an  address  at  the  Burns'  Centennial,  January  25,  1859. 


318  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

VERY  fitly  indeed  is  the  term  genius,  in  its  highest  mean- 
ing, applied  to  the  literary  character  of  the  great  poet  of 
Scotland.  To  him  was  given,  in  large  measure, 

*'  The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine  !  " 

He  possessed,  in  as  high  degree,  I  think,  as  ever  man  pos. 
sessed,  the  power  of  which  Coleridge  speaks  in  defining  the 
term  genius,  the  power  to  combine  the  child's  sense  of  wonder 
and  novelty  with  appearances  which  the  experience  of  years 
had  rendered,  familiar.  The  commonest  objects,  incidents  of 
the  slightest  apparent  significance,  were  taken  up  by  him  and 
given  back  to  us,  transfigured  and  glorified  by  the  thoughts 
which  he  had  connected  with  them,  and  which  he  had  ex- 
pressed in  verse  that  will  endure  as  long  as  our  language.  It 
is  as  if  a  magician  had  scooped  up  a  handful  of  gravel  from 
the  trodden  highway  and  shown  it,  in  his  palm,  transformed  to 
grains  of  glittering  gold  and  precious  stones  resplendent  with 
an  inward  light. 

I  admit  that  in  his  songs  Burns  was  a  disciple  of  those  who 
composed  the  old  Scottish  songs  and  ballads,  and  whose  names 
have  perished  while  their  verses  are  immortal.  A  breath  of 
fire  from  the  times  in  which  they  lived  touched  the  inflamma- 
ble material  in  his  bosom,  and  it  was  instantly  in  a  blaze.  He 
wrote  songs  in  their  manner,  with  all  their  simplicity  and 
sweetness,  and  yet  in  excellence  went  beyond  them. 

But  there  are  other  productions  of  his  for  which  he  found 
no  pattern  in  our  literature.  I  find  none  for  his  "  Tarn 
o'  Shanter,"  the  very  pearl  of  comic  poems.  It  is  written  in 
the  same  measure  as  Butler's  "  Hudibras,"  but  what  a  differ- 
ence !  a  difference  owing  simply  to  this,  that  Butler  was  a  man 
of  wit  and  Burns  a  man  of  genius.  Butler  is  prolific  in  droll 
conceits ;  he  hammers  them  out  one  after  another  and  flings 
them  down  in  clusters,  but  he  is  infinitely  tiresome,  and  we 
yawn  over  his  pages.  However  resolute  we  are  to  read  on, 
our  jaws  will  expand  in  spite  of  ourselves.  Burns  has  all  that 


ROBERT  BURNS.  319 

Butler  has,  but  he  has  also  all  that  Butler  lacks — rapid  action, 
narrative  interest,  joyous  gayety,  imagination,  apt  touches  of 
character,  and  free  and  flowing  numbers.  These  make  the 
poem  original  and  place  it  beyond  imitation. 

When,  in  reading  the  poems  of  Burns,  we  come  to  that  be- 
ginning with  the  line, 

"Wee,  modest,  crimson-tipped  flower," 

occasioned  by  uprooting  a  daisy  with  the  share  of  the  plough 
which  he  guided  across  the  field ;  and  when  we  reach  the 
beautiful  companion-piece  to  this,  beginning  with  the  words, 

"  Wee,  sleekit,  cowerin',  timorous  beastie," 

and  ask  ourselves  where  Burns  found  the  prototype  of  these 
charming  poems,  we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  he  found  them 
not  in  all  our  literature.  We  have  had  others  since  in  the  like 
vein,  but  it  was  Burns  who  showed  us  how  to  write  them. 
Both  of  them  are  testimonies  to  the  largeness  of  his  sympathies 
— sympathies  which  extended  to  every  form  of  life  between  the 
caverns  of  the  earth  and  the  stars  of  the  sky,  which  compre- 
hended the  lowliest  flower  of  the  field  and  the  humblest  animal 
that  burrows  in  the  earth,  as  well  as  the  nobler  forms  of  ex- 
istence. The  hand  that  penned  the  verses  of  which  I  have 
just  spoken  wrote  down  the  pathetic  lines,  "  To  Mary  in 
Heaven." 

An  old  Roman  poet  was  the  author  of  the  often-quoted 
saying,  "I  am  a  man,  and  there  is  nothing  human  that  does 
not  interest  me."  A  noble  sentiment ;  but  Burns  in  his  poems 
gave  it  a  wider  application,  and  showed  that  there  was  nothing 
in  the  great  universe,  the  dwelling  of  the  human  race,  that  did 
not  interest  him.  He  perceived  in  every  form  of  animal  or  of 
vegetable  life,  whether  it  moves  on  the  earth,  or  winnows  the 
air,  or  swims  the  waters,  or  fixes  its  roots  in  the  soil,  some  re- 
lation to  the  fortunes  of  human  beings.  He  saw  by  what 
harmonies,  unperceived  by  the  common  mind,  they  were  allied 


320  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

to  human  destiny,  and  as  he  spoke  of  them  he  invested  them, 
to  our  apprehension,  with  that  radiant  newness  which  we  may 
conceive  them  to  have  worn  in  the  sight  of  the  first  man  when 
he  opened  his  eyes  on  the  fresh  creation  around  him.  Such 
is  the  genius  of  Burns.* 

ONE  circumstance  alone  is  enough  to  stamp  Burns  as  a 
man  of  the  highest  order  of  genius.  He  took  a  local  dialect 
and  made  it  classical,  gave  it  a  character  of  great  universality. 
I  am  not  ignorant  of  what  the  poets  who  had  lived  before 
Burns  did  for  the  dialect  of  Scotland,  nor  what  has  been 
done  since  by  Walter  Scott,  whose  works  are  read  by  every- 
body, and  will  be  read  for  ages  to  come.  But  the  poets  of  the 
Scottish  dialect  before  Burns  never  attained  that  general  and 
popular  perusal  which  his  works  have  acquired,  and  it  was 
the  good  fortune  of  Scott  that  he  wrote  after  Burns  had  made 
that  dialect  familiar  to  all  classes  of  English  readers. 

It  was  Burns  who  taught  us  all  to  love  the  Scottish  dia- 
lect— its  graceful  diminutives,  its  rich  store  of  comic  expres- 
sions, its  homely  but  intensely  significant  phrases  of  pathos 
and  tenderness,  which  go  to  the  heart.  Within  his  lifetime — 
and  his  life  was  not  a  long  one — his  poems  were  read  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken  :  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson, 
of  the  Ashley  and  the  Santee,  of  the  Mississippi,  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  of  the  Ganges,  as  well  as  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tweed  and  the  Thames.  It  is  owing  to  Burns  that  the  na. 
tives  of  Scotland  have  it  in  their  power  to  say  that  to  him 
who  has  not  some  knowledge  of  the  Scottish  dialect  and  some 
relish  for  its  significance  there  is  one  chamber  of  the  common 
treasury  of  our  literature — a  chamber  filled  with  gems  and 
jewels — to  which  he  has  not  the  key. 

Burns  it  was,  as  I  have  said  before,  who  made  the  Scottish 
dialect  classical  wherever  our  language  is  known.  The  ut- 

*  From  a  speech  at  the  Burns  Dinner,  January  25,  1876. 


ROBERT  BURNS.  321 

terances  of  his  genius,  in  going  forth  to  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
have  carried  with  them  the  dialect  in  which  his  finest  things 
were  written.  Before  the  time  of  Burns  there  was  a  long  pe- 
riod in  which  the  poets  of  Great  Britain  "  looked  at  nature 
through  the  spectacles  of  books  " — a  period  during  which,  as 
remarked  by  Wordsworth,  scarce  a  single  new  image  from 
nature  found  its  way  into  their  verses.  They  contented  them- 
selves with  ringing  the  changes  on  those  which  the  authors 
before  them  had  made  familiar.  Then  arose  a  Scottish  poet, 
James  Thompson,  who  flung  these  spectacles  to  the  ground, 
crushing  them  under  his  remorseless  heel,  and,  looking  at  na- 
ture with  his  own  unassisted  and  clear  sighted  eyes,  crowded 
his  poem  of  the  seasons  with  images  as  new,  fresh,  and  bright 
as  Nature  herself.  He  it  was  who,  in  the  time  of  Pope,  when 
the  poetry  in  vogue  was  the  poetry  of  the  drawing-room, 
started  boldly  away  from  the  common  track,  and,  to  the 
wonder  and  delight  of  his  readers,  gave  them  the  poetry 
of  the  woods  and  fields,  and,  in  part  of  his  poem,  the  poetry 
of  the  household.  It  was  a  literary  revolution  effected  by  a 
Scottish  poet ;  but  he  did  not  venture  to  employ  the  Scottish 
dialect. 

It  was  reserved  for  Burns  to  do  this  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
give  the  Scottish  dialect  a  place  in  the  general  literature  of 
our  language.  It  was  he  who  struck  the  grand  master-note 
of  Scottish  song,  making  it  heard  in  almost  every  latitude  of 
the  globe,  and  calling  forth  an  answering  reverberation  from 
far-distant  regions.  Many  of  those  who  sit  at  this  table  have 
doubtless  heard  the  report  of  a  cannon  discharged  among  the 
Highlands  that  overlook  the  Hudson,  our  own  "  exulting  and 
abounding  river."  The  sound  has  scarcely  left  the  cannon's 
mouth  before  it  is  re-echoed  by  one  of  the  majestic  mountains 
— Dunderberg,  perhaps — on  whose  summit  the  clouds  rest 
and  the  lightnings  are  born.  Cro'  Nest  rolls  it  back  from  his 
dark  precipices  and  ancient  forests.  Then  some  headland 
more  remote  receives  it,  and  from  its  cliffs  flings  it  back  to 
the  listener.  The  sound  travels  swiftly  on,  and  a  response 


322 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES, 


comes  from  height  after  height,  until  it  passes  away  among 
the  hills  and  shores  which  lie  beyond  the  sight. 

In  these  times  of  great  and  rapid  changes  in  the  political 
and  social  world  it  is  a  relief  to  be  able  to  sometimes  fix  our 
attention,  as  we  do  to-night,  on  things  which  have  a  certain 
character  of  permanency.  For  this  is  a  period  of  mighty  and 
sudden,  and  even  of  bloody  changes,  such  as  the  world  has 
rarely  seen  —  powerful  empires  overthrown ;  new  empires 
founded ;  monarchs,  lately  the  dread  of  the  civilized  world,  now 
dethroned  and  scorned  ;  statesmen,  on  whom  seemed  to  depend 
the  fate  of  nations,  assassinated  ;  fair  and  flourishing  regions 
wasted  by  war  and  given  over  to  famine  ;  populous  cities  be- 
leaguered and  made  heaps  of  ruins.  The  spirit  of  change  now 
abroad  respects  neither  the  old  nor  the  new,  spares  neither  the 
strong  nor  the  defenceless,  but  sets  its  foot  on  crowns  and 
tiaras,  on  sceptres  and  croziers,  on  usages  and  institutions  of 
yesterday,  and  those  of  a  thousand  years,  and  crushes  them 
alike  without  remorse. 

In  the  midst  of  these  convulsions,  following  close  upon 
a  great,  sudden,  and  even  violent  change  in  our  own  insti- 
tution, we  are  met  to  celebrate,  not  the  birth  of  any  of  the 
renowned  statesmen  who  lead  in  making  these  changes  or  in 
resisting  them,  nor  any  of  the  generals  who  command  the 
mighty  armies  of  invasion  or  the  hosts  embattled  for  defence, 
but  the  advent  of  a  lowly  peasant,  in  a  humble  cottage  in  a 
secluded  district  of  Scotland,  among  hills  and  dales  and  brooks 
and  pasture-grounds,  who  wrote  verses  and  passed  to  a  prema- 
ture grave.  Yet  what  he  wrote  will  dwell,  as  it  now  dwells, 
in  the  hearts  of  thousands  hereafter,  when  the  names  of  those 
who  figure  in  the  revolutions  of  our  day  shall  be  but  dimly 
remembered.  "  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night "  will  be  re- 
peated, and  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  "  will  be  sung,  by  those  who,  if 
they  ever  think  of  the  Third  Napoleon,  will  perhaps  ask  what 
was  the  name  of  that  foolish  and  wicked  tyrant  who  long  ago, 
in  1870,  madly  plunged  France  into  a  war  which  blotted  her 


ROBERT  BURNS. 


323 


fields  with  pools  of  blood  and  laid  her  cities  in  ashes.  For 
Burns  took  the  themes  of  his  verse  from  the  common  events  of 
life — the  common  joys  and  sorrows  of  men  and  women;  he 
took  what  was  said  and  felt  at  the  fireside,  the  words  and 
phrases  of  the  household  ;  he  took  the  most  familiar  images 
and  breathed  into  them  all  a  life  and  soul  such  as  nobody  but 
himself  could  give  them,  and  made  them  a  part  of  the  litera- 
ture which  endures  from  age  to  age.* 

*  From  a  speech  at  the  Burns  Anniversary,  January  25,  1871. 


THE  PRINCETON  LIBRARY/ 


IN  rising  to  address  a  public  assembly  in  this  pleasant 
town  of  Princeton,  allow  me  to  say  that  there  is  something  in 
the  solid  and  venerable  aspect  of  the  place,  in  its  historical 
associations  as  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most  important  battles 
of  our  Revolution,  and  for  a  time  the  seat  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  and  in  the  recollection  that  a  president  of  its  noble 
institution  of  learning  was  one  of  the  leaders  in  that  Revolu- 
tion, and  that  from  these  learned  shades  have  gone  forth  more 
statesmen  than  from  any  other  college,  to  shape  the  polity  of 
our  Republic  and  direct  its  workings — not  to  speak  of  the 
illustrious  men  whom  it  has  trained  up  for  other  walks  of  life 
— in  all  these  there  is  something  which  inspires  a  kind  of  awe, 
and  I  naturally  dread  to  encounter  the  grave  judgment  of  those 
whom  I  see  before  me.  But,  inasmuch  as  I  do  not  mean,  for- 
tunately for  myself  and  those  who  hear  me,  to  hold  the  audi- 
ence long,  the  dread  will  soon  be  over. 

Before  I  congratulate  the  public  and  all  the  friends  of  good 
learning — and  this  includes,  of  course,  the  friends  of  the  Col- 
lege of  New  Jersey — on  the  opening  of  this  beautiful  building 
as  the  College  Library,  let  me  congratulate  the  gentleman  to 
whose  liberality  we  are  indebted  for  it,  and  for  the  provision 

*  An  address  spoken  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  June  24,  1873,  on  the  opening  of 
the  new  building  for  the  College  Library. 


THE  PRINCETON  LIBRARY.  325 

made  for  the  gradual  enlargement  of  the  collection  of  books 
which  it  is  to  contain.  He  is  one,  I  am  happy  to  say,  who 
prizes  the  uses  of  wealth  beyond  its  possession ;  and,  instead 
of  clinging  to  it  while  life  lasts,  and  only  then  directing  how  it 
shall  be  disposed  of  when  he  can  possess  it  no  longer,  he 
forces  it  to  go  from  his  hands  upon  an  errand  of  beneficence. 
He  has  his  reward  in  seeing  how  worthily  thus  far  it  has  per- 
formed the  office  on  which  he  sent  it  forth. 

I  read  the  other  day,  in  a  book  published  in  1839,  tnat  tne 
library  of  New  Jersey  College  then  consisted  of  eight  thou- 
sand volumes.  At  present,  with  the  aid  of  the  benefactions  of 
Mr.  Green,  to  whom  I  have  just  referred,  I  am  informed  that 
the  number  will  exceed  a  hundred  thousand — a  number  equal 
to  that  of  several  of  the  public  libraries  of  Europe  which  have 
long  been  famous — while  provision  is  made  for  its  future  in- 
crease from  year  to  year.  If  in  the  next  half  century  its  in- 
crease should  be  in  the  same  proportion,  it  will  take  its  place 
among  libraries  of  the  first  class  in  the  Old  World — the  accu- 
mulations of  many  centuries.  It  is  well  that  the  library  should 
keep  pace  in  its  growth  with  the  institution  to  which  it  be- 
longs. Under  the  present  wise  and  fortunate  administration 
of  the  college,  the  course  of  study  prescribed  to  the  students 
has  been  greatly  enlarged  ;  new  branches  of  learning  and  sci- 
ence have  been  added  ;  new  professorships  have  been  created, 
fellowships  endowed,  and  prizes  proposed  to  reward  the  dili- 
gence of  the  students.  A  library  amply  stored  has  become 
more  important  than  ever,  for  with  a  wider  sphere  of  study 
there  must  be  wider  and  deeper  research. 

To  form  an  adequate  idea  of  the  value  of  books,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  suppose  a  state  of  things  which  should  cause 
their  sudden  destruction.  I  do  not  recollect  that  any  author 
into  whose  works  I  have  looked  has  ever  taken  the  trouble  to 
imagine  and  describe  the  condition  to  which  the  immediate 
annihilation  of  books  and  manuscripts  would  reduce  the  human 
race.  It  may  be  said  that  such  an  event  is  altogether  impos- 
sible. Nay,  not  so — improbable,  I  grant — improbable,  if  you 


326  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

please,  to  the  utmost  limit  of  improbability — but  still  possible. 
Let  us  suppose  the  white  ant — the  insect  pest  which  in  South 
America  devours  and  destroys  books  and  manuscripts  with 
such  fearful  voracity  that,  as  Humboldt  avers,  they  have  not 
left  in  an  extensive  district  a  single  manuscript  a  hundred 
years  old — to  become  unexpectedly  numerous  in  all  civilized 
countries.  Let  us  suppose  it  to  multiply  as  strangely  as  the 
sugar-ant  in  the  West  India  island  of  Grenada,  when,  coming 
from  nobody  knew  where,  it  invaded  the  plantations  in  vast 
armies,  forming  dams  across  the  streams  with  their  drowned 
bodies,  over  which  the  living  ones  crossed  to  the  opposite 
bank,  devouring  everything  before  them  which  had  animal 
or  vegetable  life,  desolating  the  fields  and  gardens,  and  threat- 
ening to  drive  the  human  race  from  Grenada,  until,  in  1780, 
the  beneficent  interposition  of  a  terrific  storm  of  wind  and 
rain  annihilated  the  vast  mass  of  insect  life  and  delivered  the 
island.  Imagine  the  white  ant,  produced  in  like  numbers,  by 
means  as  mysterious,  invading  the  haunts  of  men  everywhere, 
creeping  into  our  libraries  and  publication  offices,  and  con- 
suming every  printed  page  and  every  manuscript,  and  every- 
thing on  which  the  pen  or  the  press  can  leave  its  trace.  Into 
what  confusion  and  dismay  would  society  at  once  be  thrown  ! 
The  reader  of  the  daily  gazette  from  that  moment  would  find 
himself  ignorant  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  world,  and 
would  long  in  vain  to  learn  what  had  happened  since  yester- 
day. In  the  crowded  city  he  would  find  himself  a  hermit. 
The  reader  for  entertainment  would  miss  his  accustomed  re- 
freshment; the  inquirer  after  knowledge  would  find  no  path 
open  to  his  researches ;  the  daily  reader  of  Scripture  would 
look  about  him  in  vain  for  the  sacred  volume.  The  tribunals 
would  be  forced  to  grope  their  way  without  statutes  or  law- 
books  ;  the  advocate  would  have  no  precedents  on  which  to 
found  his  arguments  save  those  which  he  might  possibly  re- 
member or  invent  for  the  occasion.  All  the  records  of  the 
past,  all  the  lessons  of  history,  all  the  discoveries  of  science, 
all  the  conclusions  of  philosophy,  all  that  the  poets  have  woven 


THE  PRINCETON  LIBRARY. 


327 


into  song,  all  that  has  been  written  down  of  moral  and  relig- 
ious truth,  would  be  lost,  and  be  as  if  they  had  never  been, 
save  such  portions  of  these  priceless  treasures  as  might  be  re- 
tained in  that  treacherous  repository,  the  human  memory  ;  and 
how  soon,  by  the  process  of  oral  transmission,  might  that  por- 
tion become  changed  and  corrupted  and  encumbered  with  spu- 
rious additions!  In  the  places  of  worship,  half-remembered 
litanies  would  be  stammered,  half-forgotten  hymns  given  out 
in  halting  metre  and  sung  to  tunes  imperfectly  recollected,  and 
mutilated  passages  of  Holy  Writ  repeated  to  unedified  con- 
gregations. 

In  such  a  state  of  things  we  should  become  deeply  sensi- 
ble of  our  immense  obligations  to  the  past.  For  it  is  to  the 
past  that  we  owe  what  we  are,  both  in  body  and  mind.  The 
past  ages  have  moulded  the  age  in  which  we  live  to  the  shape 
it  now  wears ;  but  for  the  past,  man  would  be  helplessly  in  a 
savage  state.  Every  advance  in  civilization,  every  shining  ex- 
ample of  active  virtue,  every  wise  or  sacred  precept  of  human 
conduct,  every  triumph  of  art  and  skill,  everything,  in  short, 
that  stores  the  mind  with  wisdom,  or  instructs  the  hand,  or  en- 
lightens the  conscience,  is  of  the  past,  and  books  are  the  reposi- 
tories in  which  they  are  laid  up  for  the  use  of  mankind  from 
generation  to  generation.  Destroy  the  volumes  in  which  they 
are  contained,  and  you  blot  out  the  past  ages,  with  all  that 
they  have  done  for  us,  and  the  human  race  would  drift  hope- 
lessly into  barbarism. 

And  now  we  stand  under  a  roof  dedicated  to  the  great 
minds  of  the  past — the  temple  of  a  thousand  venerable  memo- 
ries. The  illustrious  ones  who  have  passed  the  gates  of  death 
before  us  may  have  left  their  material  part  in  graves  marked 
by  some  known  memorial,  or  their  dust  may  be  scattered  to 
the  winds,  but  here  is  what  the  earth  still  possesses  of  their 
higher  nature.  Here  are  their  words,  still  animated  by  the 
living  soul,  and  here  is  the  record  of  their  glorious  example. 
It  matters  not  where  their  bones  are  laid  while  we  have  among 
us,  in  the  volumes  which  this  structure  will  contain  from  cen- 


328  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

tury  to  century,  this  remnant  of  the  immortal  spirit.  May 
none  enter  among  them  without  an  emotion  of  reverence ;  may 
none  who  come  to  hold  converse  in  these  alcoves  with  the 
mighty  minds  of  other  years  fail  to  recognize  with  gratitude 
the  providence  which,  through  the  invention  of  letters,  has  en- 
abled those  whom  God  endowed  with  eminent  gifts  of  intellect 
to  speak  to  their  fellow-men  of  all  succeeding  time,  and  has 
thus  in  part  repealed  the  doom  of  death. 


FRANKLIN  AS  POET/ 


THE  illustrious  printer  and  journalist  whose  birth  we  this 
evening  commemorate  is  often  spoken  of  with  praise  as  an 
acute  observer  of  nature  and  of  men,  as  a  philosopher,  as  an 
inventor,  as  an  able  negotiator,  as  a  statesman.  But  in  this  lat- 
ter respect,  the  capacity  of  statesman,  he  has  not  received  all 
the  praise  which  is  his  due.  For  he  saw,  as  it  seems  to  me,  far- 
ther into  the  true  province  and  office  of  a  free  government, 
and  the  duties  of  its  legislators,  than  any  man  of  his  time.  He 
saw  and  pointed  out  the  folly  of  governing  too  much.  He 
saw  that  it  is  not  the  business  of  a  government  to  do  what  can 
be  done  by  individuals.  He  saw  that  what  the  Government 
had  to  do  was  to  restrain  its  citizens  from  invading  each 
other's  rights,  and  compel  them  to  respect  each  other's  free- 
dom. He  therefore  condemned  the  corn  laws — the  laws 
against  the  importation  of  grain — a  hundred  years  before  the 
people  of  Great  Britain  became  convinced  of  their  folly  and 
repealed  them.  He  held  also  that  it  was  not  the  policy  of  a 
state  to  put  any  limitations  on  paper  credit — in  other  words,  he 
was  for  free  banking,  believing  that  the  intermeddling  of  the 
Government  with  that  branch  of  commercial  business  could 
only  lead  to  mischief.  Franklin  saw  also  the  wisdom  and  hu- 
manity of  mitigating  the  calamities  of  war  by  allowing  trading 

*  From  a  speech  at  the  celebration   of  Franklin's  birthday  by  the   New  York 
Typographical  Society,  January  17,  1874. 


330 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 


vessels  to  pass  and  repass  unmolested  on  the  high  seas  in  time 
of  war,  and,  before  he  returned  from  Europe  in  1785,  he  nego- 
tiated a  treaty  with  Prussia  which  contained  an  article  against 
privateering.  Thus  he  anticipated  by  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury the  proposition  which  our  Government  has  since  made 
to  Great  Britain. 

Franklin  is  not  often  spoken  of  as  a  witty  man,  but  his  wit 
was  as  remarkable  as  his  statesmanship.  I  think  that  he  would 
have  had  as  much  wit  as  Swift  or  as  Voltaire  if  he  had  but 
cultivated  this  talent.  Only  his  clear,  practical  good  sense  pre- 
dominated, and  he  never  showed  himself  in  the  capacity  of  a 
humorist  save  when  some  practical  purpose  was  to  be  effected 
by  it.  Only  twenty-four  days  before  his  death  he  composed 
the  amusing  parody  of  a  speech  delivered  on  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress by  Mr.  Jackson  in  defence  of  slavery — a  parody  which 
evidently  suggested  to  Sidney  Smith  the  famous  conservative 
oration  of  Noodle.  I  took  up  lately  a  French  biographical  ac- 
count of  Franklin,  and  there  I  found  a  list  of  some  of  the  prov- 
erbs coined  by  him,  and  added  to  the  common  stock.  Among 
these  was  one  illustrating  the  difficulty  which  those  who  are 
in  extreme  poverty  find  in  keeping  to  the  strict  line  of  recti- 
tude. "  It  is  hard,"  said  Franklin,  "  to  make  an  empty  bag 
stand  upright."  "  The  Petition  of  the  Left  Hand"  and  the  dia- 
logue between  Franklin  and  the  Gout  are  examples  of  his  wit, 
which  was  all  of  the  genuine  sort.  I  suppose  he  never  made 
a  pun  in  his  life,  because  he  could  see  no  use  for  it. 

If  I  should  say  that  Franklin  was  also  a  poet,  this  assembly, 
I  suppose,  would  smile.  Yet  the  poetic  element  was  not 
wanting  in  his  mental  constitution,  though  he  did  not  write 
verses,  at  least  but  rarely.  You  remember  his  tract  written 
on  seeing  a  fly  crawl  out  from  a  glass  of  Madeira  wine  just 
drawn  from  the  cask,  where  it  had  been  immersed,  perhaps,  for 
years.  That  was  a  fine  poetic  thought  which  he  wrought  out 
from  that  circumstance,  of  being  himself  preserved  in  a  state  of 
suspended  animation  by  some  such  means  for  a  century  or  two, 
and  being  then  recalled  to  life  and  the  world  and  shown  the 


FRANKLIN  AS  POET. 


331 


mighty  changes  which  had  taken  place  in  the  interval  in  the 
aspect  of  things  and  the  state  of  society — a  new  and  strange 
world  in  place  of  the  one  which  he  inhabited.  But  the  most 
remarkable  example  of  his  possession  of  the  poetic  faculty 
was  given  when,  in  the  year  1787,  he  sat  in  the  convention 
which  framed  the  Federal  Constitution.  As  the  convention 
finished  its  labors,  the  sun,  emerging  from  a  cloud,  poured  a 
flood  of  radiance  into  the  hall  where  the  assembly  was  held. 
You  know  that  the  ancients  made  the  god  of  the  sun,  Phoebus 
Apollo,  the  god  of  poetry  also,  and  the  source  of  poetic  inspi- 
ration. The  aged  philosopher,  then  in  his  eighty-second  year, 
caught  the  inspiration,  and,  in  a  few  well-chosen  words,  ac- 
cepted and  proclaimed  the  omen.  I  cannot  give  the  precise 
words,  because  I  have  not  been  able  lately  to  find  the  record 
of  them,  but  they  were  in  substance  these :  "  Thus,"  he  said, 
"  are  the  clouds  that  lowered  over  our  Republic  in  its  infancy 
destined  to  pass  away.  Thus  will  the  smile  of  Heaven  be 
vouchsafed  to  our  completed  labors,  and  the  sunshine  of  pros- 
perity rest  on  our  country  !  "  My  friends,  may  his  words,  in 
all  the  coming  time,  prove  as  prophetic  as  they  are  poetical.* 

*  This  incident  is  reported  by  Madison  in  his  debates  on  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion ;  and  it  would  have  given  additional  point  to  Mr.  Bryant's  illustration  if  he  had 
remembered  the  precise  words  of  the  reporter.  "  While  the  last  members  were  sign- 
ing, Dr.  Franklin,  looking  toward  the  President's  chair,  at  the  back  of  which  a  rising 
sun  happened  to  be  painted,  observed  to  a  few  members  near  him  that  painters  had 
found  it  difficult  to  distinguish,  in  their  art,  a  rising  from  a  setting  sun.  '  I  have,' 
said  he, '  often  and  often,  in  the  course  of  the  session  and  the  vicissitudes  of  my  hopes 
and  fears  as  to  its  issue,  looked  at  that  behind  the  President  without  being  able  to 
tell  whether  it  was  rising  or  setting  ;  but  now,  at  this  hour,  we  have  the  happiness  to 
know  that  it  is  a  rising,  not  a  setting  sun.' " — ED. 


VOL.   II. — 22 


NATIONAL  HONESTY.* 


I  AM  glad  to  see  in  this  concourse  a  proof  of  the  interest 
with  which  the  public  of  New  York  regard  the  object  of  this 
meeting.  For  it  is  a  most  important  question  that  we  are  now 
to  consider — the  question  whether  our  Government  is  to  go 
any  deeper  into  the  ignominy  of  a  false  financial  policy — the 
policy  of  palming  upon  the  country  a  currency  of  dishonored 
notes  as  a  measure  of  value. 

You  remember  the  circumstances  under  which  this  policy 
was  resolved  upon.  It  was  excused  only  as  a  war  measure. 
Its  advocates  said  in  so  many  words  :  "  We  adopt  it  only  under 
the  pressure  of  necessity  ;  we  shall  discard  it  as  soon  as  the 
country  is  again  at  peace.  We  here  solemnly  pledge  ourselves 
to  pay,  at  the  earliest  possible  period,  in  coin,  the  notes  which 
we  now  make  a  lawful  tender."  There  were  many  who  re- 
monstrated against  this  step  at  the  time,  and  I  was  among  the 
number.  We  urged  that  there  was  no  necessity  for  it.  We 
urged  that  those  who  had  cheerfully  sent  their  sons  to  the  war 
would  even  more  willingly  lend  the  Government  the  credit  it 
required  ;  that  those  who  willingly  shed  their  blood  would 
even  more  readily  part  with  the  necessary  means  to  carry  on 
the  war,  and  that  nothing  more  was  needed  for  this  than  for 
the  Government  to  issue  certificates  of  stock  for  small  amounts, 
which  the  people  were  ready  to  take  up  as  fast  as  issued.  We 

*  Address  at  a  mass-meeting  held  in  Cooper  Institute,  March  25,  1874. 


NATIONAL  HONESTY.  333 

urged  that  the  artificial  plethora  caused  by  issuing  paper- 
money  not  to  be  redeemed  with  coin  would  stimulate  specu- 
lation ;  that  the  fever  of  speculation  would  be  followed  by  a 
collapse  and  a  panic  ;  and  that,  in  spite  of  all  pledges,  there 
would  then  be  a  clamor  for  new  and  larger  issues  of  paper. 

Well,  the  irredeemable  paper  was  issued,  the  era  of  mad 
speculation  came  and  passed  ;  the  era  of  panic  arrived,  and 
now  we  hear  the  predicted  clamor  for  more  issues  of  lying 
promises  from  the  government  presses.  If  they  are  sanc- 
tioned by  Congress,  and  have  the  effect  which  they  are  in- 
tended to  have,  they  will  revive  speculation,  they  will  lead  to 
another  collapse  of  credit,  another  era  of  commercial  ruin, 
and  the  stagnation  of  trade.  This  is  simply  repeating  the  les- 
sons of  history.  If  this  be  not  so,  the  annals  of  the  world  are 
a  fable  and  experience  a  cheat.  Against  a  measure  fraught 
with  such  consequences  we  are  assembled  to  protest. 

Will  you  hear  an  anecdote  illustrative  of  this  topic  ?  It 
was  some  forty  years  ago  that  a  tall,  thin  gentleman,  in  a  long 
great-coat  and  a  cap,  stalked  into  the  Mechanics'  Bank  in  this 
city.  He  leisurely  took  from  his  pocket-book  a  five-dollar 
note  of  the  bank,  and,  laying  it  before  the  teller,  requested  its 
payment.  The  teller  said  :  "  We  do  not  pay  our  notes."  The 
tall,  thin  man — who  it  appeared  was  John  Randolph — put  on 
his  spectacles  and  read  the  note  in  a  high-keyed  voice.  "  '  The 
president  and  directors  of  the  Mechanics'  Bank  promise  to  pay 
the  bearer  five  dollars,  value  received.'  There,  I  want  the  five 
dollars  which  you  promise  to  pay."  "  But  we  do  not  pay,"i  re- 
joined the  teller;  "  the  banks  have  suspended  payment."  "Oh, 
stopped  payment !  Then  let  me  tell  you  what  to  do.  Take  the 
sledge-hammer  out  of  the  hand  that  hangs  over  your  door,  and 
in  its  place  put  a  razor." 

My  friends,  if  Congress  should  be  moved  by  this  clamor  to 
disgrace  the  country  by  issuing  more  notes  the  condition  of 
whose  existence  is  to  be  dishonored,  may  we  not  take  a  hint 
from  this  anecdote?  What  business  will  the  king  of  birds — 
the  eagle,  whose  flight  is  above  that  of  all  other  fowls  of  the 


334  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES, 

air — have  on  an  escutcheon  which  this  policy  will  disgrace  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  ?  Let  his  image  then  be  blotted  out ; 
obliterate  also  the  stars  of  heaven ;  efface  the  stripes  of  morn- 
ing light  which  should  be  the  promise  of  a  day  of  glory  and 
honor,  and,  instead  of  those  emblems,  let  the  limner  draw  on 
the  broad  sheet  the  image  of  a  razor,  huge  enough  to  be 
wielded  by  the  Giant  Despair — a  gentleman  with  whom,  if 
this  demand  for  more  paper-money  be  granted,  we  are  des- 
tined to  scrape  a  closer  acquaintance  than  we  have  enjoyed 
yet — and  on  the  enormous  blade  let  the  words  be  inscribed, 
in  staring  letters,  "  Warranted  to  shave  " ;  and  let  the  two  sup- 
porters of  this  majestic  implement — the  two  razor-bearers — 

be of  Indiana  and of  Pennsylvania;  or,  perhaps, 

of  Massachusetts,  may  sustain  the  charge  alone. 


GOETHE; 


WE  whom  this  occasion  has  brought  together  are  assembled 
for  a  purpose  which,  in  order  to  its  perfect  fulfilment,  looks  to 
future  years  and  to  generations  yet  unborn.  We  are  to  erect 
to  the  greatest  literary  genius  of  Germany  a  bust  which,  placed 
in  our  Central  Park,  may  fix  the  gaze  of  those  who  frequent 
its  walks  and  repose  in  its  shades  so  long  as  this  great  mart  of 
commerce  shall  remain  the  abode  of  civilized  man.  It  is  our 
fate,  my  friends,  to  pass  away  like  shadows.  I  look  around 
me  on  this  concourse  and  see  only  those  whom  the  lapse  of 
time  is  bearing  onward  to  the  close  of  life.  The  light  of  the 
soul  will  soon  pass  from  the  brightest  eye  here  ;  the  firmest 
health  will  give  way ;  the  strongest  muscles  will  become  pow- 
erless and  be  resolved  into  dust.  The  mind  recoils  from  the 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  Centennial  Festival  given  by  the  Goethe  Club,  of 
New  York,  in  honor  of  Goethe,  August  27,  1875.  On  tne  day  on  which  the  festival 
was  held,  Mr.  Bryant's  journal,  the  "  Evening  Post,"  spoke  of  the  occasion  in  this 
wise : 

"In  that  charming  little  book,  'Goethe  and  Mendelssohn,' there  are  recorded, 
among  the  musician's  reminiscences,  Goethe's  remarks  upon  that  great  period  in 
the  history  of  German  literature — the  year  1775.  This  year  Goethe  called  the  spring 
of  the  epoch  which  succeeded,  and  he  said  (it  was  upon  the  occasion  of  a  visit  of 
Mendelssohn  to  him  in  1830)  that  no  man  lived  who  could  remember  it  and  describe 
it  as  he  could.  'Yes,'  said  Goethe,  'that  time  was  like  the  spring,  when  every- 
thing is  bursting  into  life  and  one  tree  stands  bare  while  another  is  already  in 
full  leaf.'  Therefore,  in  seeking  for  some  proper  centennial  celebration  of  Goethe's 
career,  no  better  date  could  be  fixed  upon  than  that  time  which  was  fullest  of  the 


336  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

idea  of  an  extinguished  consciousness,  and,  in  its  impatience  at 
the  universal  tendency  to  decay  and  dissolution,  calls  on  the 
arts  to  perpetuate  the  outward  semblance  of  those  who  have 
been  admired  or  beloved  for  their  talents  or  their  virtues  and 
their  influence  on  society.  At  our  bidding,  the  sculptor  comes 
and  copies,  in  lasting  marble  or  imperishable  bronze,  the  faces 
and  forms  of  those  whose  death  has  saddened  the  nations.  To 
this  material  under  his  hands  he  gives  the  expression  of  the 
soul  and  fixes  it  there  forever.  This  is  one  of  the  modes  in 
which  the  human  species  manifests  its  longing  for  immortality, 
its  strong  desire  to  escape  from  the  fate  which  is  sure  to  over- 
take the  bodily  frame. 

We  obey  this  instinct  to-day  in  the  proceedings  which  are 
to  end  in  erecting  a  bust  to  John  Wolfgang  Goethe. 

It  is  said  by  his  biographers  that  in  his  youth  Goethe 
planned  a  migration  to  America.  His  imagination  was  capti- 
vated by  the  idea  of  a  life  passed  with  one  whom  he  loved  in 
the  sylvan  solitudes  and  flowery,  natural  meadows  of  our  con- 
tinent. He  had  become  enamored  of  a  young  woman  named 
Lilli,  and  thought  to  transplant  this  blossom  of  his  native  land 
to  the  virgin  soil  of  America,  to  bloom  under  our  brighter 
skies.  That  purpose  was  short-lived,  like  a  similar  one  enter- 
tained a  quarter  of  a  century  later  by  Coleridge  and  Southey  ; 
it  was  a  poet's  dream,  and  soon  faded  away.  But  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years  since  it  was  formed,  we  make  it, 
in  part  at  least,  a  reality.  We  welcome  the  great  German 

brilliant  future ;  Goethe  appears  to  men  as  perhaps  the  finest  type  of  a  superb 
and  successful  Apollo  among  the  famous  characters  of  history.  Nature  and  fortune 
combined  to  produce  in  him  one  of  those  bright,  enviable  beings  whom  men  love  to 
contemplate,  because  seeing  in  them  the  completion  and  perfection  of  their  own 
inadequate  and  imperfect  selves.  In  no  one  thing  was  fortune  kinder  to  him  tHan 
in  the  happy  conjunction  of  his  own  youth  with  the  dawn  of  the  new  time,  and  no 
scene  could  be  fixed  upon  more  suggestive  and  significant,  more  replete  with  thought 
and  picture,  more  full  of  food  for  mind  and  fancy,  than  the  quaint  little  town  of 
Weimar  as  it  lay  in  the  sun  a  hundred  years  ago.  How  marvellous  the  change  ! 
How  striking  the  contrast  between  the  world  as  it  seemed  to  that  little  group  of  en- 
thusiasts and  that  which  we  behold  to-day  I  " 


GOETHE. 


337 


poet  to  our  western  hemisphere,  to  our  youthful  republic,  to 
this  populous  mart,  to  the  spacious  and  beautiful  pleasure- 
ground  which  is  one  of  its  chief  ornaments,  and  invite  him  to 
grace  it  with  his  majestic  presence  while  the  world  shall  stand. 
If  he  had  come  to  the  United  States  at  the  time  when  his 
youthful  imagination  formed  the  plan  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
he  would  have  found  the  American  continent  still  in  great  part 
a  wilderness,  with  a  few  tracts  of  cultivation  along  its  Atlantic 
borders  enclosed  in  a  vast  forest,  where  the  savage  warrior, 
armed  with  bow  and  tomahawk,  still  hovered  on  the  skirts  of 
the  settlements.  But  now  we  celebrate  his  coming  to  a 
mighty  empire,  to  a  population  almost  as  large  as  that  of  all 
the  region  in  the  Old  World  inhabited  by  those  who  speak  the 
German  language,  to  valleys  where  the  songs  of  the  Teuton 
are  sung,  and  where  his  own  ballads  are  recited  and  his  trage- 
dies read  in  thousands  of  families  which  have  migrated  from 
his  own  fatherland,  and  where  his  mystic  drama  of  "  Faust " 
has  found  a  translator  worthy  of  the  original,  an  interpreter 
of  its  meaning  to  those  who  speak  the  language  of  Milton  and 
Shakespeare.*  We  bring  from  a  distant  land  his  image,  that 
it  may  be  placed  where  thousands  in  a  day,  who  throng  to  our 
Central  Park  to  be  refreshed  by  its  sweet  air  and  pleasant 
shades,  shall  become  familiar  with  his  features  and  learn  to  see 
in  them  the  tokens  of  a  mighty  intellect  and  a  calm  spirit. 

We  shall  place  his  bust  in  the  same  grounds  with  the  bust 
of  Schiller,  with  whom  in  his  lifetime  he  maintained  a  cordial 
friendship,  and  kept  up  a  correspondence  dictated  by  mutual 
regard  and  kindness.  For  Goethe,  my  friends,  was  not  of  that 
class  who  regard  praise  bestowed  upon  a  rival  as  so  much 
detracted  from  their  own  merits.  No  satirist  could  say  of  him 
what  Pope  said  of  Addison  when,  after  speaking  of  his  talents 
and  endowments,  he  added  how  lamentable  it  would  be 

"  Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne, 

*  Bayard  Taylor. 


338  ,          OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

View  him  with  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise." 

There  has  been  a  literary  feud  in  Germany  between  the 
admirers  of  Schiller  and  those  of  Goethe,  each  party  claiming 
for  its  favorite  the  palm  of  superior  greatness ;  but  there  was 
no  hostility  between  those  eminent  men  while  they  lived. 
Goethe  was  himself  too  great  and  of  too  serene  a  tempera- 
ment to  allow  himself  to  be  made  unhappy  by  competition  in 
any  walk  of  literature.  If  no  other  reason  existed  for  honor- 
ing his  memory,  it  should  be  remembered,  to  his  praise,  that 
he  was  superior  to  the  selfishness  and  littleness  of  repining  at 
the  fair  fame  of  another.  He  looked  with  a  generous  tolerance 
upon  rivalry,  deeming  the  field  of  letters  a  common  inheri- 
tance, where  every  one  was  entitled  to  the  harvest  which  he 
had  the  strength  to  reap.  It  may  be  that  in  the  consciousness 
of  his  great  powers  he  felt  that  he  had  no  rival  to  fear ;  but 
even  this  implies  soundness  of  judgment,  and  a  certain  sense 
of  justice  and  greatness  of  soul  which  disdained  to  claim  a 
monopoly  of  praise. 

If  such  was  Goethe's  estimate  of  his  own  powers,  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say  that  he  was  mistaken.  The  large  majority  of 
critical  voices  has  placed  him  at  the  head  of  German  litera- 
ture. An  imagination  so  affluent  and  creative,  such  wealth  of 
knowledge,  such  acute  observation  of  nature,  such  insight  into 
men's  characters  and  motives,  rarely  exist  together;  and  these, 
presided  over  by  a  taste  which,  in  guiding,  never  fettered  the 
sallies  of  his  imagination,  form  the  literary  character  of  Goethe. 
He  has  been  praised  for  his  many-sidedness,  and  the  commenda- 
tion is  just.  He  was  master  not  only  of  many  modes  of  poetic 
invention,  but  of  several  sciences.  He,  as  well  as  Milton — that 
high  and  sacred  name — is  an  example  to  show  how  knowledge 
may  become  the  handmaid  of  poetry,  and  how  a  poet  of  the 
higher  class  fuses,  by  the  fire  of  his  imagination,  the  stores  of 
erudition  at  his  command  into  a  mass  bearing  the  stamp  and 
seal  of  his  own  genius,  and  ready  to  be  shaped  into  any  form 


GOETHE. 


339 


that  he  may  please  to  give  it,  and  how  his  invention  is  stimulated 
rather  than  encumbered  by  the  large  abundance  of  his  materials. 
It  is  far  from  my  intentions  to  enter,  at  this  time,  upon  an 
analysis  of  the  literary  character  of  Goethe.  It  would  weary 
those  who  have  the  patience  to  hear  me  if  I  were  to  repeat 
what  others  have  better  said,  and,  certainly,  I  am  not  disposed 
unnecessarily  to  delay  the  more  acceptable  entertainments  of 
the  evening.  A  hundred  years — and  it  is  somewhat  more  than 
a  hundred  years  since  his  first  work  was  published — have  fixed 
his  rank  among  the  great  poets  of  the  world.  It  is  true  that, 
on  account  of  the  difficulties  which  attend  the  task  of  trans- 
lating poetry,  the  reputation  of  an  eminent  poet  must  be  some- 
what national  rather  than  universal,  and  his  genius  must  be 
most  perfectly  apprehended  in  the  country  where  his  language 
is  spoken.  Notwithstanding  this,  we  find  Goethe,  by  general 
consent,  placed  among  those  whose  genius  is  the  common  pos- 
session of  the  nations,  and  whose  fame  is  bounded  only  by  the 
limits  of  the  civilized  world.  I  remember  a  remark  of  the 
poet  Halleck — that  when  a  writer  of  verse  begins  to  be  quoted, 
from  that  moment  he  is  famous.  It  is  a  still  surer  sign,  per- 
haps, of  the  extent  of  his  fame,  when  he  begins  to  be  made 
the  subject  of  commentary.  I  saw  it  remarked  the  other  day 
in  a  literary  periodical  that  the  writer  had  found  in  a  cata- 
logue of  the  Heidelberg  University  one  hundred  and  twelve 
volumes  of  commentaries  on  the  poem  of  "  Faust,"  and  all  of 
them  in  the  German  tongue.  I  may  venture  to  say  that  these 
are  but  a  part  of  what  has  become  a  special  branch  of  German 
literature,  and,  mere  rubbish  as  some  of  them  must  be,  they 
attest  the  power  of  that  poem  over  the  minds  of  its  readers — 
a  poem  in  which  Goethe  laid  the  reins  loose  upon  his  imagi- 
nation, and  allowed  it  to  range  without  restraint.  Few  are  the 
works  produced,  since  books  began  to  be  written,  which  have 
given  birth  to  such  a  brood  of  expositions.  A  strange  attrac- 
tion has  kept  men  hanging  over  its  pages  and  prying  into  its 
inner  meaning.  Only  the  great  poem  of  Dante  occurs  to  me 
as  vicing  with  it  in  the  number  and  voluminousness  of  its  com- 


340  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

mentaries.  But  the  secret  force  which  draws  the  attention  of 
readers  to  the  poem  of  "  Faust "  cannot  make  them  unmindful 
of  the  merits  of  his  other  writings — his  noble  tragedies,  full 
of  the  results  of  his  power  of  observing  and  delineating  char- 
acter; his  works  of  "fiction,  possessing  in  no  small  degree  the 
attractiveness  which  belongs  to  his  "  Faust"  ;  his  writings  on 
science  and  his  exquisite  ballads,  composed  with  a  perfection 
of  grace  and  skill  beyond  which  it  seems  impossible  to  go. 
Goethe  was  a  master  of  expression ;  the  noble  German  lan- 
guage as  it  flowed  from  his  pen  took  its  fairest  and  most  per- 
fect form,  and  became  a  transparent  vehicle  of  the  thought. 
No  author  of  the  purest  age  of  Greek  literature  surpassed 
him  in  grace.  For,  after  all,  the  style  is  a  part  of  the  thought, 
and  a  bad  style  is  a  distortion  of  the  thought. 

In  this  country  of  free  institutions  we  cannot,  perhaps, 
make  Goethe  our  model  in  politics.  It  is  urged  against  him, 
not  without  a  show  of  reason,  that,  possessing  a  power  over 
public  opinion  which  would  have  given  effect  to  his  slightest 
remonstrance  against  absolute  government,  he  yet  acquiesced 
in  its  wrongs,  and  consented  to  become  one  of  those  who 
profited  by  them.  Those  who  take  an  unfriendly  view  of  his 
character  complain  that  he  did  not  care  to  make  men  happier 
so  long  as  his  own  condition  was  fortunate  and  agreeable,  nor, 
better,  so  long  as  their  moral  condition,  whatever  it  might  be, 
ministered  to  his  convenience.  He  did  not  admit  the  truth  of 
this  accusation,  but  claimed  that  he  had  labored,  during  a  long 
life,  in  overcoming  pernicious  prejudices  and  narrow  views 
among  his  countrymen,  in  elevating  the  intellect  and  purify, 
ing  the  taste  of  the  community,  and  that  his  real  offence  was 
that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  party  politics.  I  do 
not  care  on  this  occasion  to  discuss  the  question  whether  this 
was  a  satisfactory  answer,  and  willingly  draw  a  veil  over  the 
circumstances  which  might  lead  to  an  unfavorable  conclu- 
sion.* Yet  may  we  not  say  for  Goethe  that  there  is  one  ami- 

*  Although  Mr.  Bryant  was  a  member  of  the  Goethe  Club,  punctual  in  his  attend- 
ance at  its  meetings,  where  he  listened  with  delight  to  the  many  able  papers  read  by 


GOETHE.  341 

able  quality  of  his  character,  which  he  might  not  have  re- 
tained had  he  taken  upon  himself  the  troublesome  office  of  a 
political  reformer  ?  I  mean  the  quiet  of  a  contented  spirit, 
which  makes  the  best  of  surrounding  conditions,  and  converts 
them,  as  far  as  may  be,  into  the  means  of  happiness. 

But  if  Goethe  was  not  a  reformer  in  politics  he  was  a  re- 
former in  literature.  In  that  province  he  did  not  shrink  from 
innovation.  In  his  very  first  published  works,  written  before 
his  taste  was  matured — in  "  Gotz  of  the  Iron  Hand  "  and  in 
"The  Sorrows  of  Werther" — he  broke  away  from  the  preva- 
lent imitation  of  French  models,  and  from  the  cold  classicism 
which  was  its  result,  and  took  his  own  road  to  fame.  This 
originality,  this  courageous  self-reliance,  marked  all  his  subse- 
quent writings  throughout  his  long  literary  career. 

My  friends,  the  bust  of  Goethe,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
is  already  landed  on  our  shores,  and  will  soon  be  unveiled  to 
the  public  gaze.  A  place  for  it  will  yet  be  found  in  our  Cen- 
tral Park,  where  it  is  to  stand  for  centuries — possibly  as  long 
as  ships  shall  enter  from  the  main  ocean  between  the  fair  isl- 
ands that  enclose  our  beautiful  harbor.  We  shall  place  this 
bust  of  Goethe  among  a  noble  company — with  the  statue  of 
Shakespeare,  the  greatest  name  in  all  literature  ;  with  that  of 
Scott,  who  translated  "  Gotz  of  the  Iron  Hand,"  and  who 
learned  from  Goethe  to  weave  the  traditions  of  his  own  coun- 
try into  recitals  of  romantic  adventure  ;  with  that  of  his  coun- 
tryman Humboldt,  to  whom  the  mechanism  of  the  universe 
was  as  familiar  as  the  motions  of  his  own  watch  ;  and  with  that 
of  our  own  Morse,  who  taught  us  to  charge  the  electric  spark 

its  members  relating  to  the  character  and  genius  of  the  great  poet,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  was  always  in  sympathy  with  the  admiration  for  Goethe's  character  they 
sometimes  expressed.  He  could  not  have  said,  as  Heine  writes  in  one  of  his  letters  : 
"  As  for  Goethe  and  myself,  we  are  at  bottom  two  heterogeneous  and  consequently 
repulsive  natures.  Goethe  was  essentially  a  man  of  this  world,  for  whom  the  easy  en- 
joyment of  life  was  the  sovereign  thing,  who  at  times  had  felt  life  in  the  idea  and 
been  able  to  express  it  in  his  poetry,  but  who  had  never  seized  hold  of  it  pro- 
foundly, and  still  less  really  lived  it."  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Mr.  Bryant,  while 
extolling  the  genius,  treads  cautiously  when  he  approaches  the  man. 


342  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

with  messages  from  distant  lands,  and  to  prepare  for  it  a  path 
across  broad  continents  and  through  deep  waters.  Other  stat- 
ues of  those  whose  lives  were  illustrious  and  whose  memory 
is  cherished  will  be  set  up  in  the  same  grounds.  That  of  our 
countryman,  author  of  the  impassioned  lyric  of  "  Marco  Boz- 
zaris,"  is  even  now  only  waiting  to  be  cast  in  bronze,  in  order 
to  join  the  band  already  there ;  but  late,  very  late,  may  the 
time  arrive  when  the  American  poet  whose  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  Goethe  forms  a  part  of  the  entertainments  of  the 
evening,  and  whose  translation  of  "  Faust "  has  made  that 
poem  a  familiar  volume  in  our  libraries,  shall  be  added,  after 
death,  to  the  number  of  those  whose  statues  shall  grace  that 
beautiful  pleasure-ground.  As  the  throng  of  those  who  resort 
thither  shall  pass  the  sculptured  forms  of  famous  personages, 
may  the  hope  to  copy  their  example  in  the  good  which  they 
have  done,  and  to  avoid  the  errors  into  which  they  have  fallen, 
if  any  such  are  recorded  against  them,  rise  in  their  hearts  to 
make  them  better  men  and  women  for  their  visit  to  the  spot 
made  sacred  by  images  of  the  chosen  ones  who  lived  and 
passed  away  before  us. 


M  A  Z  Z  I  N  I  .* 


HISTORY,  my  friends,  has  recorded  the  deeds  of  Giuseppe 
Mazzini  on  a  tablet  which  will  endure  while  the  annals  of  Italy 
are  read.  Art  has  been  called  to  do  her  part  in  perpetuating 
his  memory,  and  to-day  a  bust  is  unveiled  which  will  make 
millions  familiar  with  the  divine  image  stamped  on  the  coun- 
tenance of  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  our  times. 

The  idea  of  Italian  unity  and  liberty  was  the  passion  of 
Mazzini's  life;  it  took  possession  of  him  in  youth,  it  grew 
stronger  as  the  years  went  on,  and  lost  none  of  its  power  over 
him  in  his  age.  Nor  is  it  at  all  surprising  that  it  should  have 
taken  a  strong  hold  on  his  youthful  imagination.  I  recollect 
very  well  that  when,  forty-four  years  ago,  I  first  entered  Italy, 
then  held  down  under  the  weight  of  a  score  of  despotisms,  the 
same  idea  forcibly  suggested  itself  to  my  mind  as  I  looked 
southward  from  the  slopes  of  the  mountain  country.  There 
lay  a  great  sisterhood  of  provinces  requiring  only  a  confederate 
republican  government  to  raise  them  to  the  rank  of  a  great 
power,  presenting  to  the  world  a  single  majestic  front,  and 
parcelling  out  the  powers  of  local  legislation  and  government 
among  the  different  neighborhoods  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
educate  the  whole  population  in  a  knowledge  of  the  duties 

*  Mr.  Bryant  appeared  for  the  last  time  in  public  on  the  zgth  of  May,  1878.  He 
then  took  part  in  the  ceremony  of  unveiling  the  bust  of  Mazzini,  the  Italian  states- 
man, in  the  Central  Park,  in  New  York,  and  delivered  this  address. 


544  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

and  rights  of  freemen.  There  were  the  industrious  Piedmon- 
tese,  the  enterprising  Genoese,  among  whom  Mazzini  was 
born — a  countryman  of  Columbus  ;  there  were  the  ambitious 
Venetians  and  the  Lombards,  rejoicing  in  their  fertile  plains ; 
and  there,  as  the  imagination  followed  the  ridge  of  the  Apen- 
nines toward  the  Strait  of  Messina,  were  the  Tuscans,  famed 
in  letters ;  the  Umbrians,  wearing  in  their  aspect  the  tokens  of 
Latin  descent ;  the  Romans  in  their  centre  of  arts ;  the  gay 
Neapolitans ;  and  farther  south  the  versatile  Sicilians,  over 
whose  valleys  rolls  the  smoke  of  the  most  famous  volcano  in 
the  world.  As  we  traverse  these  regions  in  thought  we  rec- 
ognize them  all  as  parts  of  one  Italy,  yet  each  inhabited  by 
Italians  of  a  different  character  from  the  rest,  all  speaking 
Italian,  but  with  a  difference  in  each  province;  each  region 
cherishing  its  peculiar  traditions,  which  reach  back  to  the  be- 
ginning of  civilization,  and  its  peculiar  usages  observed  for 
ages. 

Well  might  the  great  man  whose  bust  we  disclose  at  this 
time  to  the  public  gaze  be  deeply  moved  by  this  spectacle  of 
his  countrymen  and  kindred  bound  in  the  shackles  of  a  brood 
of  local  tyrannies  which  kept  them  apart  that  they  might  with 
more  ease  be  oppressed.  When  he  further  considered  the 
many  great  men  who  had  risen  from  time  to  time  in  Italy  as 
examples  of  the  intellectual  endowments  of  her  people — states- 
men, legislators,  men  of  letters,  men  eminent  in  philosophy, 
in  arms,  and  in  arts — I  say  that  he  might  well  claim  for  the 
birthplace  of  such  men  the  unity  of  its  provinces  to  make  it 
great,  and  the  liberty  of  its  people  to  raise  them  up  to  the 
standard  of  their  mental  endowments.  Who  shall  blame  him 
— who  in  this  land  of  freedom — for  demanding  in  behalf  of 
such  a  country  a  political  constitution  framed  on  the  most 
liberal  pattern  which  the  world  has  seen  ? 

For  such  a  constitution  he  planned ;  for  that  he  labored ; 
that  object  he  never  suffered  to  be  out  of  his  sight.  No  pro- 
claimer  of  a  new  religion  was  ever  more  faithful  to  his  mission. 
Here,  where  we  have  lately  closed  a  sanguinary  but  successful 


MAZZINI.  345 

war  in  defence  of  the  unity  of  the  States  which  form  our  Re- 
public ;  here,  where  we  have  just  broken  the  chains  of  three 
millions  of  bondmen — is,  above  all  others,  the  place  where  a 
memorial  of  the  great  champion  of  Italian  unity  and  liberty 
should  be  set  up  amid  a  storm  of  acclamation  from  a  multitude 
of  freemen. 

Yet,  earnestly  as  he  desired  these  ends  and  struggled  to 
attain  them,  the  struggle  was  a  noble  and  manly  one ;  he  dis- 
dained to  compass  these  ends  by  base  or  ferocious  means  ;  he 
abhorred  bloodshed ;  he  detested  vengeance ;  he  spoke  little 
of  rights,  but  much  of  duties,  resolving  the  cares  of  an  en- 
lightened statesmanship  into  matters  of  duty.  The  only  war- 
fare  which  he  would  allow,  and  that  as  a  sorrowful  necessity, 
was  an  open  warfare  waged  against  that  brute  force  that  vio- 
lates human  duty  and  human  right.  In  that  warfare  his  cour- 
age rose  always  equal  to  the  occasion — a  courage  worthy  of 
the  generous  political  philosophy  which  he  professed.  For 
there  was  no  trial  he  would  not  endure,  no  sacrifice,  no  labor 
he  would  not  undertake,  no  danger  he  would  not  encounter 
for  the  sake  of  that  dream  of  his  youth  and  pursuit  of  his  man- 
hood, the  unity  and  liberty  of  Italy. 

That  country  is  now  united  under  one  political  head — save 
a  portion  arbitrarily  and  unjustly  added  to  France — and  to  the 
public  opinion  formed  in  Italy  by  the  teachings  of  Mazzini 
the  union  is  in  large  measure  due.  Italy  has  now  a  consti- 
tutional government,  the  best  feature  of  which  it  owes  to  the 
principles  of  republicanism  in  which  Mazzini  trained  a  whole 
generation  of  the  young  men  of  Italy,  however  short  the  pres- 
ent government  of  the  country  may  fall  of  the  ideal  standard 
at  which  he  aimed. 

One  great  result  for  which  he  labored  was  the  perfect 
freedom  of  religious  worship.  Well  has  he  deserved  the 
honors  of  posterity  who,  holding  enforced  worship  to  be  an 
abomination  in  the  sight  of  God,  took  his  life  in  his  hand  and 
went  boldly  forward  until  the  yoke  of  the  great  tyranny  exer- 
cised over  the  religious  conscience  in  his  native  country  was 


346  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

broken.  Such  a  hero  deserves  a  njonument  in  a  land  where 
the  Government  knows  no  distinction  between  religious  de- 
nominations and  leaves  their  worship  to  their  consciences. 

I  will  not  say  that  he  whose  image  is  to-day  unveiled  was 
prudent  in  all  his  proceedings;  nobody  is;  timidity  itself  is 
not  always  prudence.  But,  wherever  he  went  and  whatever 
he  did,  he  was  a  power  on  earth.  He  wielded  an  immense 
influence  over  men's  minds ;  he  controlled  a  vast  agency ;  he 
made  himself  the  centre  of  a  wide  diffusion  of  opinions ;  his 
footsteps  are  seen  in  the  track  of  history  by  those  who  do  not 
always  reflect  by  whose  feet  they  are  impressed.  Such  was 
the  celerity  of  his  movements  and  so  sure  the  attachment  of 
his  followers  that  he  was  the  terror  of  the  crowned  heads  of 
Europe.  Kings  trembled  when  they  heard  that  he  had  sud- 
denly disappeared  from  London,  and  breathed  more  freely 
when  they  learned  that  he  was  in  his  grave.  In  proportion 
as  he  was  dreaded  he  was  maligned. 

Image  of  the  illustrious  champion  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  cast  in  enduring  bronze  to  typify  the  imperishable  re- 
nown of  thy  original,  remain  for  ages  yet  to  come  where 
we  place  thee,  in  this  resort  of  millions ;  remain  till  the  day 
shall  dawn — far  distant  though  it  may  be — when  the  rights 
and  duties  of  human  brotherhood  shall  be  acknowledged  by  all 
the  races  of  mankind !  * 

*  These  were  the  last  words  uttered  by  Mr.  Bryant  in  public,  and  almost  the  last 
that  he  ever  spoke. 


III. 

EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND 
CRITICISMS. 


VOL.   II.— 23 


ON  WRITING  TRAGEDY.* 

THIS  work  appears  from  the  title-page  to  be  printed  from 
a  London  edition,  but  we  learn  that  the  author  is  a  country- 
man of  our  own.  We  are  glad  to  meet  with  so  respectable  a 
production  in  this  department  of  literature  from  the  pen  of  a 
native  writer.  Indeed,  we  are  pleased  to  receive  any  mod- 
ern tragedy  in  the  English  language  so  well  worthy  of  notice. 
Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  it  is  certain  that  late  attempts  in 
that  species  of  composition,  with  few  exceptions,  have  failed. 
Few  writers,  indeed,  of  any  note,  have  ventured  upon  it,  and 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  discouragements  are  many  and 
serious.  In  other  kinds  of  poetical  composition  the  author 
writes  for  those  whose  minds  have  many  habits  in  common 
with  his  own  :  he  writes  to  the  contemplative,  to  the  learned, 
to  those  who  have  leisure  to  follow  him  in  his  reviews  and  to 
accompany  him  till  he  finishes  his  favorite  disquisitions.  But 
the  tragic  poet  has  not  only  to  deal  with  these,  but  with  a 
more  vivacious  and  impatient  race  of  beings ;  it  must  be  his 
aim  to  please  the  many  as  well  as  the  few  ;  he  can  offend 
neither  with  safety.  His  piece  may  be  well  received  in  the 
theatre,  but,  if  destitute  of  those  higher  qualities  which  should 
recommend  it  to  the  more  polished  and  enlightened  part  of 

*  From  a  review  of  Percy's  "  Masque,"  a  drama,  in  the  "  North  American  Re- 
view," vol.  xi,  p.  384.  It  was  the  design  of  the  editor  to  include  in  this  volume  a 
copious  selection  from  the  editorial  comments  and  criticisms  of  Mr.  Bryant  ;  but  he 
found,  on  approaching  this  division  of  the  work,  that  he  had  already  so  far  en- 
croached upon  the  space  to  which  he  was  limited  that  he  was  obliged  to  confine  his 
extracts  to  a  comparatively  few,  written  at  different  periods  of  the  author's  life. 


350  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

society,  the  multitude  soon  grow  weary  of  the  bauble,  and  it 
comes  first  to  be  despised,  and  then  forgotten.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  may  frame  his  work  according  to  the  most  judicious 
and  sensible  rules  of  criticism ;  he  may  introduce  many  fine 
situations  and  much  beautiful  poetry  ;  he  may  produce  what 
shall  be  called  a  pleasing  composition  ;  still  he  may  have  failed 
to  touch  those  springs  which  move  the  hearts  and  kindle  the 
imaginations  of  all,  and  he  goes  off  with  the  cold  and  equivo- 
cal compliment  of  having  written  a  good  closet  tragedy.  It  is, 
perhaps,  more  difficult,  and  requires  intenser  effort,  to  bring  the 
mind  to  a  proper  state  for  writing  tragedy  than  for  the  other 
kinds  of  poetical  composition.  In  the  latter  we  commune 
with  the  author ;  he  describes  to  our  imaginations,  he  appeals 
to  our  feelings  in  his  own  favorite  way,  and  these  peculiarities 
interest  us.  But  the  dramatic  poet  must  put  off  his  identity 
and  put  on  the  characters  which  he  invents.  He  must  bring 
before  him  the  personages  of  his  plot,  and  see  their  faces  and 
hear  their  voices  in  his  retirement.  He  must  do  more :  he 
must  enter  into  their  bosoms,  he  must  feel  with  their  hearts, 
and  speak  with  their  lips.  Now,  it  is  obvious  that  all  this 
demands  great  versatility  of  talent  as  well  as  a  state  of  strong 
and  peculiar  mental  excitement.  It  demands,  too,  a  great  sac- 
rifice of  the  self-love  and  vanity  of  authorship.  Many  a  flight 
of  imagination,  many  an  elegant  refinement,  which  the  author 
would  be  glad  that  the  world  should  have  an  opportunity  to 
admire,  but  which  have  no  special  connection  with  the  busi- 
ness of  his  play — stately  phrases  and  pretty  epithets,  which 
suggest  themselves  to  his  mind  and  win  upon  his  partiality, 
but  which  would  ill  suit  the  ease  of  dialogue  or  the  language 
of  passion — must  be  rigidly  excluded.  Everything  that  inter- 
rupts the  interest,  everything  that  destroys  the  scenic  illusion, 
all  that  is  merely  fine  and  showy,  must  be  retrenched  without 
mercy.  It  cannot  be  objected  that  these  rules  would  make 
the  writer  tamely  and  coldly  correct.  On  the  contrary,  they 
do  not  forbid,  they  even  require,  that  the  diction  and  sentiment 
should  be  highly  glowing  and  impassioned ;  but  they  still  re- 


AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION.     351 

quire,  what  is  the  best  means  of  attaining  to  these  qualities, 
that  he  should  never  forget  his  subject.  With  all  these  diffi- 
culties in  their  way,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  most  celebrated 
English  poets  of  our  day  should  choose  to  exert  their  talents 
in  those  walks  of  poetry  which  leave  them  more  at  liberty 
to  move  in  the  free  and  natural  current  of  their  own  feelings 
and  fancies.  It  may  be  doubted,  too,  whether  the  general 
manner  of  most  of  these  writers,  greatly  superior  as  we  think 
it  to  the  cautious  and  unimpassioned  style  which  immediately 
preceded  it,  is  not  yet  too  quaint,  fanciful,  and  over-wrought 
to  succeed  well  on  the  stage.  Be  this  as  it  may,  tragedy  is  a 
noble  province  of  poetry,  demanding  great  powers  of  inven- 
tion, deep  knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  and  a  strong  and 
manly  judgment;  and  proud  would  be  the  triumph  of  him 
who  at  this  day  should  overcome  its  difficulties  and  take  his 
place  by  the  side  of  those  great  and  ancient  masters  of  the 
drama  whose  race  seems  to  have  passed  away  from  among 
us,  like  that  of  the  giants  who  lived  before  the  flood.  It 
were  glorious  to  succeed  ;  it  is  not  dishonorable,  however,  to 
have  failed. 


AMERICAN   SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR 
FICTION.* 

ON  more  than  one  occasion  we  have  already  given,  our 
opinion  somewhat  at  large  of  the  fertility  of  our  country,  and 
its  history,  in  the  materials  of  romance.  If  our  reasonings 
needed  any  support  from  successful  examples  of  that  kind  of 
writing,  as  a  single  fact  is  worth  a  volume  of  ingenious  theo- 
rizing, we  have  had  the  triumph  of  seeing  them  confirmed,  be- 
yond all  controversy,  by  the  works  of  a  popular  American  au- 

*  From  a  review  of  "  Redwood,"  by  Miss  Sedgwick,  in  the  "  North  American," 
vol.  xx,  p.  245. 


352 


EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 


thor,  who  has  shown  the  literary  world  into  what  beautiful 
creations  those  materials  may  be  wrought.  In  like  manner,  we 
look  upon  the  specimen  before  us  as  a  conclusive  argument 
that  the  writers  of  works  of  fiction,  of  which  the  scene  is  laid 
in  familiar  and  domestic  life,  have  a  rich  and  varied  field  be- 
fore them  in  the  United  States.  Indeed,  the  conviction  on 
this  subject,  which  till  lately  prevailed  among  us,  that  works 
of  this  kind,  descriptive  of  the  manners  of  our  countrymen, 
could  not  succeed,  never  seemed  to  us  to  rest  on  a  very  solid 
foundation.  It  was  rather  a  sweeping  inference,  drawn  from 
the  fact  that  no  highly  meritorious  work  of  the  kind  had  ap- 
peared, and  the  most  satisfactory  and  comfortable  way  of  ac- 
counting for  this  was  to  assert  that  no  such  could  be  written. 
But  it  is  not  always  safe  to  predict  what  a  writer  of  genius 
will  make  of  a  given  subject.  Twenty  years  ago,  what  possi- 
ble conception  could  an  English  critic  have  had  of  the  admi- 
rable productions  of  the  author  of  "  Waverley,"  and  of  the 
wonderful  improvement  his  example  haseffected  in  that  kind 
of  composition?  Had  the  idea  of  one  of  those  captivating 
works,  destined  to  take  such  strong  hold  on  all  minds,  been 
laid  before  him  by  the  future  author,  he  would  probably  only 
have  wondered  at  his  vanity. 

There  is  nothing  paradoxical  in  the  opinion  which  main- 
tains that  all  civilized  countries — we  had  almost  said  all  coun- 
tries whatever — furnish  matter  for  copies  of  real  life,  embodied 
in  works  of  fiction,  which  shall  be  of  lasting  and  general  inter- 
est. Wherever  there  are  human  nature  and  society  there  are 
subjects  for  the  novelist.  The  passions  and  affections,  virtue 
and  vice,  are  of  no  country.  Everywhere  love  comes  to  touch 
the  hearts  of  the  young,  and  everywhere  scorn  and  jealousy, 
the  obstacles  of  fortune  and  the  prudence  of  the  aged,  are  at 
hand  to  disturb  the  course  of  love.  Everywhere  there  exists 
the  greed  of  wealth,  the  lust  of  power,  and  the  wish  to  be 
admired  ;  courage  braving  real  dangers,  and  cowardice  shrink- 
ing from  imaginary  ones ;  friendship  and  hatred,  and  all  the 
train  of  motives  and  impulses  which  affect  the  minds  and  influ- 


AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION.     353 

ence  the  conduct  of  men.  They  not  only  exist  everywhere, 
but  they  exist,  infinitely  diversified  and  compounded,  in  vari- 
ous degrees  of  suppression  and  restraint,  or  fostered  into  un- 
natural growth  and  activity,  modified  by  political  institutions 
and  laws,  by  national  religions  and  subdivisions  of  those  relig- 
ions, by  different  degrees  of  refinement  and  civilization,  of  pov- 
erty or  of  abundance,  by  arbitrary  usages  handed  down  from 
indefinite  antiquity,  and  even  by  local  situation  and  climate. 
Nor  is  there  a  single  one  of  all  these  innumerable  modifica- 
tions of  human  character  and  human  emotion  which  is  not, 
in  some  degree,  an  object  of  curiosity  and  interest.  Over  all 
the  world  is  human  sagacity  laying  its  plans,  and  chance  and 
the  malice  of  others  are  thwarting  them,  and  fortune  is  raising 
up  one  man  and  throwing  down  another.  In  none  of  the 
places  of  human  habitation  are  the  accesses  barred  against  joy 
or  grief ;  the  kindness  of  the  good  carries  gladness  into  fami- 
lies, and  the  treachery  of  the  false  friend  brings  sorrow  and 
ruin ;  in  all  countries  are  tears  shed  over  the  graves  of  the  ex- 
cellent, the  brave,  and  the  beautiful,  and  the  oppressed  breathe 
freer  when  the  oppressor  has  gone  to  his  account.  Every- 
where has  Nature  her  features  of  grandeur  and  of  beauty,  and 
these  features  receive  a  moral  expression  from  the  remem- 
brances of  the  past  and  the  interests  of  the  present.  On  her 
face,  as  on  an  immense  theatre,  the  passions  and  pursuits  of 
men  are  performing  the  great  drama  of  human  existence.  At 
every  moment,  and  in  every  corner  of  the  world,  these  mighty 
and  restless  agents  are  perpetually  busy,  under  an  infinity  of 
forms  and  disguises,  and  the  great  representation  goes  on  with 
that  majestic  continuity  and  uninterrupted  regularity  which 
mark  all  the  courses  of  nature.  Who,  then,  will  undertake  to 
say  that  the  hand  of  genius  may  not  pencil  off  a  few  scenes 
acted  in  our  vast  country,  and  amid  our  large  population, 
that  shall  interest  and  delight  the  world  ? 

It  is  a  native  writer  only  that  must  and  can  do  this.  It  is 
he  that  must  show  how  the  infinite  diversities  of  human  char- 
acter are  yet  further  varied  by  causes  that  exist  in  our  own 


354          EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

country,  exhibit  our  peculiar  modes  of  thinking  and  action 
and  mark  the  effect  of  these  upon  individual  fortunes  and 
happiness.  A  foreigner  is  manifestly  incompetent  to  the  task ; 
his  observation  would  rest  only  upon  the  more  general  and 
obvious  traits  of  our  national  character,  a  thousand  delicate 
shades  of  manner  would  escape  his  notice,  many  interesting 
peculiarities  would  never  come  to  his  knowledge,  and  many 
more  he  would  misapprehend.  It  is  only  on  his  native  soil 
that  the  author  of  such  works  can  feel  himself  on  safe  and  firm 
ground,  that  he  can  move  confidently  and  fearlessly,  and  put 
forth  the  whole  strength  of  his  powers  without  risk  of  failure. 
His  delineations  of  character  and  action,  if  executed  with  abili- 
ty, will  have  a  raciness  and  freshness  about  them  which  will 
attest  their  fidelity,  the  secret  charm  which  belongs  to  truth 
and  nature,  and  without  which  even  the  finest  genius  cannot 
invest  a  system  of  adscititious  and  imaginary  manners.  It  is 
this  quality  which  recommends  them  powerfully  to  the  sym- 
pathy and  interest  even  of  those  who  are  unacquainted  with 
the  original  from  which  they  are  drawn,  and  makes  such  pic- 
tures from  such  hands  so  delightful  and  captivating  to  the 
foreigner.  By  superadding  to  the  novelty  of  the  manners 
described  the  interest  of  a  narrative,  they  create  a  sort  of  illu- 
sion which  places  him  in  the  midst  of  the  country  where  the 
action  of  the  piece  is  going  on.  He  beholds  the  scenery  of  a 
distant  land,  hears  its  inhabitants  conversing  about  their  own 
concerns  in  their  own  dialect,  finds  himself  in  the  bosom  of 
its  families,  is  made  the  depositary  of  their  secrets  and  the 
observer  of  their  fortunes,  and  becomes  an  inmate  of  their  fire- 
sides without  stirring  from  his  own.  Thus  it  is  that  American 
novels  are  eagerly  read  in  Great  Britain,  and  novels  descrip- 
tive of  English  and  Scottish  manners  as  eagerly  read  in 
America. 

It  has  been  objected  that  the  habits  of  our  countrymen  are 
too  active  and  practical ;  that  they  are  too  universally  and 
continually  engrossed  by  the  cares  and  occupations  of  business 
to  have  leisure  for  that  intrigue,  those  plottings  and  counter- 


AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION.    355 

plottings,  which  are  necessary  to  give  a  sufficient  degree  of 
action  and  eventfulness  to  the  novel  of  real  life.  It  is  said 
that  we  need  for  this  purpose  a  class  of  men  whose  condition 
in  life  places  them  above  the  necessity  of  active  exertion,  and 
who  are  driven  to  the  practice  of  intrigue  because  they  have 
nothing  else  to  do.  It  remains,  however,  to  be  proved  that 
any  considerable  portion  of  this  ingredient  is  necessary  in  the 
composition  of  a  successful  novel.  To  require  that  it  should 
be  made  up  of  nothing  better  than  the  manoeuvres  of  those 
whose  only  employment  is  to  glitter  at  places  of  public  resort, 
to  follow  a  perpetual  round  of  amusements,  and  to  form  plans 
to  outshine,  thwart,  and  vex  each  other,  is  confining  the  writer 
to  a  narrow  and  most  barren  circle.  It  is  requiring  an  undue 
proportion  of  heartlessness,  selfishness,  and  vice  in  his  pictures 
of  society.  It  is  compelling  him  to  go  out  of  the  wholesome 
atmosphere  of  those  classes,  where  the  passions  and  affections 
have  their  most  salutary  and  natural  play,  and  employ  his  ob- 
servations on  that  where  they  are  the  most  perverted,  sophisti- 
cated, and  corrupt. 

But  will  it  be  seriously  contended  that  he  can  have  no 
other  resource  than  the  rivalries  and  machinations  of  the  idle, 
the  frivolous,  and  the  dissolute,  to  keep  the  reader  from  yawn- 
ing over  his  pictures?  Will  it  be  urged  that  no  striking  and 
interesting  incidents  can  come  to  pass  without  their  miserable 
aid  ?  If  our  country  be  not  the  country  of  intrigue,  it  is  at 
least  the  country  of  enterprise ;  and  nowhere  are  the  great 
objects  that  worthily  interest  the  passions  and  call  forth  the  ex- 
ertions of  men  pursued  with  more  devotion  and  perseverance. 
The  agency  of  chance,  too,  is  not  confined  to  the  shores  of 
Europe ;  our  countrymen  have  not  attained  a  sufficient  degree 
of  certainty  in  their  calculations  to  exclude  it  from  ours.  It 
would  really  seem  to  us  that  these  two  sources,  along  with 
that  blessed  quality  of  intrigue  which  even  the  least  favorable 
view  of  our  society  will  allow  us,  are  abundantly  fertile  in  in- 
teresting occurrences  for  all  the  purposes  of  the  novelist. 
Besides,  it  should  be  recollected  that  it  is  not  in  any  case  the 


356  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

dull  diary  of  ordinary  occupations  or  amusements  that  forms 
the  groundwork  of  his  plot.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  some 
event,  or  at  least  a  series  of  events,  of  unusual  importance, 
standing  out  in  strong  relief  from  the  rest  of  the  biography  of 
his  principal  characters,  and  to  which  the  daily  habits  of  their 
lives,  whatever  may  be  their  rank  or  condition,  are  only  a  kind 
of  accompaniment 

But  the  truth  is  that  the  distinctions  of  rank  and  the 
amusements  of  elegant  idleness  are  but  the  surface  of  society, 
and  only  so  many  splendid  disguises  put  upon  the  reality  of 
things.  They  are  trappings  which  the  writer  of  real  genius, 
the  anatomist  of  the  human  heart,  strips  away  when  he  would 
exhibit  his  characters  as  they  are,  and  engage  our  interest  for 
them  as  beings  of  our  own  species.  He  reduces  them  to  the 
same  great  level  where  distinctions  of  rank  are  nothing  and 
difference  of  character  everything.  It  is  here  that  James  I  and 
Charles  II  and  Louis  IX  and  Rob  Roy  and  Jeanie  Deans 
and  Meg  Merrilies  are,  by  the  author  of  the  "  ^[^ferle^Nov- 
els,"  made  to  meet.  The  monarch  must  come  down  from  the 
dim  elevation  of  his  throne ;  he  must  lay  aside  the  assumed 
and  conventional  manners  of  his  station,  and  unbend  and  un- 
bosom himself  with  his  confidants  before  that  illustrious  master 
will  condescend  to  describe  him.  In  the  artificial  sphere  in 
which  the  great  move,  they  are  only  puppets  and  pageants, 
but  here  they  are  men.  A  narrative  the  scene  of  which  is 
laid  at  the  magnificent  levees  of  princes,  in  the  drawing-rooms 
of  nobles,  and  the  bright  assemblies  of  fashion,  may  be  a  very 
pretty,  showy  sort  of  thing,  and  so  may  a  story  of  the  glitter- 
ing dances  and  pranks  of  fairies.  But  we  soon  grow  weary  of 
all  this  and  ask  for  objects  of  sympathy  and  regard  ;  for  some- 
thing the  recollection  of  which  shall  dwell  on  the  heart,  and 
to  which  it  will  love  to  recur ;  for  something,  in  short,  which 
is  natural,  the  unaffected  traits  of  strength  and  weakness,  of 
the  tender  and  the  comic,  all  which  the  pride  of  rank  either 
removes  from  observation  or  obliterates. 

If  these  things  have  any  value,  we  hesitate  not  to  say  that 


AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION,    357 

they  are  to  be  found  abundantly  in  the  characters  of  our  coun- 
trymen, formed  as  they  are  under  the  influences  of  our  free 
institutions,  and  shooting  into  a  large  and  vigorous,  though 
sometimes  irregular,  luxuriance.  They  exist  most  abundantly 
in  our  more  ancient  settlements,  and  amid  the  more  homo- 
geneous races  of  our  large  populations,  where  the  causes  that 
produce  them  have  operated  longest  and  with  most  activity. 
It  is  there  that  the  human  mind  has  learned  best  to  enjoy  our 
fortunate  and  equal  institutions,  and  to  profit  by  them.  In 
the  countries  of  Europe  the  laws  chain  men  down  to  the  con- 
dition in  which  they  were  born.  This  observation,  of  course, 
is  not  equally  true  of  all  those  countries,  but,  when  they  are 
brought  into  comparison  with  ours,  it  is  in  some  degree  ap- 
plicable to  them  all.  Men  spring  up  and  vegetate  and  die 
without  thinking  of  passing  from  the  sphere  in  which  they 
find  themselves  any  more  than  the  plants  they  cultivate  think 
of  removing  from  the  places  where  they  are  rooted.  It  is  the 
tendency  of  this  rigid  and  melancholy  destiny  to  contract  and 
stint  the  intellectual  faculties,  to  prevent  the  development  of 
character  and  to  make  the  subjects  of  it  timid,  irresolute,  and 
imbecile.  With  us,  on  the  contrary,  where  the  proudest 
honors  in  the  State  and  the  highest  deference  in  society  are 
set  equally  before  all  our  citizens,  a  wholesome  and  quickening 
impulse  is  communicated  to  all  parts  of  the  social  system. 
All  are  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  ambition  and  a  love  of  ad- 
venture, an  intense  competition  calls  forth  and  exalts  the  pas- 
sions and  faculties  of  men,  their  characters  become  strongly 
defined,  their  minds  acquire  a  hardihood  and  an  activity 
which  can  be  gained  by  no  other  discipline,  and  the  com- 
munity, throughout  all  its  conditions,  is  full  of  bustle  and 
change  and  action. 

Whoever  will  take  the  pains  to  pursue  this  subject  a  little 
into  its  particulars  will  be  surprised  at  the  infinite  variety  of 
forms  of  character  which  spring  up  under  the  institutions 
of  our  country.  Religion  is  admitted  on  all  hands  to  be  a 
mighty  agent  in  moulding  the  human  character ;  and,  accord- 


358  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

ingly,  with  the  perfect  allowance  and  toleration  of  all  religions, 
we  see  among  us  their  innumerable  and  diverse  influences 
upon  the  manners  and  temper  of  our  people.  Whatever  may 
be  his  religious  opinions,  no  one  is  restrained  by  fear  of  con- 
sequences from  avowing  them,  but  is  left  to  nurse  his  peculiari- 
ties of  doctrine  into  what  importance  he  pleases.  The  Quaker 
is  absolved  from  submission  to  the  laws  in  those  particulars 
which  offend  his  conscience,  the  Moravian  finds  no  barriers  in 
the  way  of  his  work  of  proselytism  and  charity,  the  Roman 
Catholic  is  subjected  to  no  penalty  for  pleasing  himself  with 
the  magnificent  ceremonial  of  his  religion,  and  the  Jew  wor- 
ships unmolested  in  his  synagogue.  In  many  parts  of  our 
country  we  see  communities  of  that  strange  denomination,  the 
Shakers,  distinguished  from  their  neighbors  by  a  garb,  a  dia- 
lect, an  architecture,  a  way  of  worship,  of  thinking,  and  of 
living,  as  different  as  if  they  were  in  fact  of  a  different  origin, 
instead  of  being  collected  from  the  families  around  them.  In 
other  parts  we  see  small  neighborhoods  of  the  Seventh  Day 
Baptists,  retaining  their  simplicity  of  manners  and  quaintness 
of  language  delivered  down  from  their  fathers.  Here  we 
find  the  austerities  of  puritanism  preserved  to  this  day,  there 
the  rights  and  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  England  are  shown 
in  their  effect  on  the  manners  of  the  people,  and  yet  in  another 
part  of  the  country  springs  up  a  new  and  numerous  sect,  who 
wash  one  another's  feet  and  profess  to  revive  the  primitive 
habits  of  the  apostolic  times. 

It  is  in  our  country  also  that  these  differences  of  character, 
which  grow  naturally  out  of  geographical  situation,  are  least 
tampered  with  and  repressed  by  political  regulations.  The 
adventurous  and  roving  natives  of  our  sea-coasts  and  islands 
are  a  different  race  of  men  from  those  who  till  the  interior, 
and  the  hardy  dwellers  of  our  mountainous  districts  are  not 
like  the  inhabitants  of  the  rich  plains  that  skirt  our  mighty 
lakes  and  rivers.  The  manners  of  the  Northern  States  are  said 
to  be  characterized  by  the  keenness  and  importunity  of  their 
climate,  and  those  of  the  Southern  to  partake  of  the  softness 


AMERICAN  SOCIETY  AS  A  FIELD  FOR  FICTION. 


359 


of  theirs.  In  our  cities  you  will  see  the  polished  manners  of 
the  European  capitals,  but  pass  into  the  more  quiet  and  un- 
visited  parts  of  the  country,  and  you  will  find  men  whom 
you  might  take  for  the  first  planters  of  our  colonies.  The 
descendants  of  the  Hollanders  have  not  forgotten  the  traditions 
of  their  fathers,  and  the  legends  of  Germany  are  still  recited, 
and  the  ballads  of  Scotland  still  sung,  in  settlements  whose 
inhabitants  derive  their  origin  from  those  countries.  It  is 
hardly  possible  that  the  rapid  and  continual  growth  and  im- 
provement of  our  country,  a  circumstance  wonderfully  excit- 
ing to  the  imagination  and  altogether  unlike  anything  wit- 
nessed in  other  countries,  should  not  have  some  influence  in 
forming  our  national  character.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  most 
fertile  source  of  incident.  It  does  for  us  in  a  few  short  years 
what  in  Europe  is  a  work  of  centuries.  The  hardy  and  sa- 
gacious native  of  the  Eastern  States  settles  himself  in  the 
wilderness  by  the  side  of  the  emigrant  from  the  British  Isles ; 
the  pestilence  of  the  marshes  is  braved  and  overcome;  the 
bear  and  wolf  and  catamount  are  chased  from  their  haunts ; 
and  then  you  see  cornfields  and  roads  and  towns  springing 
up  as  if  by  enchantment.  In  the  mean  time  pleasant  Indian 
villages,  situated  on  the  skirts  of  their  hunting-grounds,  with 
their  beautiful  green  plats  for  dancing  and  martial  exercises, 
are  taken  into  the  bosom  of  our  extending  population,  while 
new  States  are  settled  and  cities  founded  far  beyond  them. 
Thus  a  great  deal  of  history  is  crowded  into  a  brief  space. 
Each  little  hamlet  in  a  few  seasons  has  more  events  and 
changes  to  tell  of  than  a  European  village  can  furnish  in  a 
course  of  ages. 

But,  if  the  writer  of  fictitious  history  does  not  find  all  the 
variety  he  wishes  in  the  various  kinds  of  our  population,  de- 
scended, in  different  parts  of  our  country,  from  ancestors  of 
different  nations,  and  yet  preserving  innumerable  and  indubi- 
table tokens  of  their  origin,  if  the  freedom  with  which  every 
man  is  suffered  to  take  his  own  way  in  all  things  not  affecting 
the  peace  and  good  order  of  society  does  not  furnish  him 


360          EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

with  a  sufficient  diversity  of  characters,  employments,  and 
modes  of  life,  he  has  got  other  resources.  He  may  bring  into 
his  plots  men  whose  characters  and  manners  were  formed  by 
the  institutions  and  modes  of  society  in  the  nations  beyond 
the  Atlantic,  and  he  may  describe  them  faithfully  as  things 
which  he  has  observed  and  studied.  If  he  is  not  satisfied  with 
indigenous  virtue,  he  may  take  for  the  model  of  his  characters 
men  of  whom  the  Old  World  is  not  worthy,  and  whom  it  has 
cast  out  from  its  bosom.  If  domestic  villany  be  not  dark 
enough  for  his  pictures,  here  are  fugitives  from  the  justice  of 
Europe  come  to  prowl  in  America.  If  the  coxcombs  of  our 
own  country  are  not  sufficiently  exquisite,  affected,  and  ab- 
surd, here  are  plenty  of  silken  fops  from  the  capitals  of  foreign 
kingdoms.  If  he  finds  himself  in  need  of  a  class  of  men  more 
stupid  and  degraded  than  atfe  to  be  found  among  the  natives 
of  the  United  States,  here  are  crowds  of  the  wretched  peas- 
antry of  Great  Britain  and  Germany,  flying  for  refuge  from 
intolerable  suffering,  in  every  vessel  that  comes  to  our  shores. 
Hither,  also,  resort  numbers  of  that  order  of  men  who,  in 
foreign  countries,  are  called  the  middling  class,  the  most  valu- 
able part  of  the  communities  they  leave,  to  enjoy  a  moderate 
affluence,  where  the  abuses  and  exactions  of  a  distempered 
system  of  government  cannot  reach  them  to  degrade  them 
to  the  condition  of  the  peasantry.  Our  country  is  the  asylum 
of  the  persecuted  preachers  of  new  religions  and  the  teachers 
of  political  doctrines  which  Europe  will  not  endure  ;  a  sanctu- 
ary for  dethroned  princes  and  the  consorts  of  slain  emperors. 
When  we  consider  all  these  innumerable  differences  of  char- 
acter, native  and  foreign,  this  infinite  variety  of  pursuits  and 
objects,  this  endless  diversity  and  change  of  fortunes,  and  be- 
hold them  gathered  and  grouped  into  one  vast  assemblage  in 
our  own  country,  we  shall  feel  little  pride  in  the  sagacity  or 
the  skill  of  that  native  author  who  asks  for  a  richer  or  a  wider 
field  of  observation. 


DRAMATIC   USE  OF  SCRIPTURE  CHARACTERS.      361 

ON  THE  DRAMATIC  USE  OF  SCRIPTURE 
CHARACTERS.* 

THOUGH  the  author  of  "  Hadad "  has  chosen  to  give  his 
work  the  more  general  denomination  of  a  dramatic  poem,  it 
has  all  the  incidents  and  characteristics  of  a  tragedy.  It  is 
continued  through  the  proper  number  of  acts,  is  written  with 
a  sufficient  regard  to  dramatic  unity,  and  is  furnished  with  a 
reasonable  number  and  variety  of  characters.  It  has  a  regular 
plot  and  catastrophe,  and  the  personages  are  all  finally  dis- 
posed of  according  to  the  fairest  rules  of  poetical  justice. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  author  was  prevented  from  calling  it 
a  tragedy  by  supposing  that  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and 
the  introduction  of  supernatural  agents  into  the  plot,  would 
exclude  it  from  the  stage.  Let  it  be  a  dramatic  poem,  then, 
since  the  author  chooses  to  call  it  so — at  all  events,  we  are 
ready  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  a  very  good  one. 

The  story  of  this  drama  is  founded  on  the  rebellion  of  Ab- 
salom. This  is  a  very  interesting  event  in  the  annals  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  the  actors  in  it  were  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant personages  of  Scripture  history.  How  far  subjects 
drawn  from  the  sacred  writings  are  proper  for  narrative  or 
dramatic  poetry  is  a  question  about  which  there  has  been 
much  discussion.  It  has  been  urged,  among  other  objections 
to  this  use  of  such  subjects,  that  it  is  a  sort  of  unhallowed 
mingling  of  fiction  with  the  pure  truth  of  the  sacred  records, 
the  tendency  of  which  is  to  impair  our  reverence  for  the  his- 
tory of  our  religion,  and  our  respect  for  the  lessons  which  that 
history  was  intended  to  inculcate.  We  must  say,  however, 
that,  with  all  proper  deference  for  these  scruples,  we  cannot 
help  thinking  them  entirely  unnecessary. 

The  human  persons  mentioned  in  sacred  history  must  be 

*  From  a  review  of  "  Hadad,"  by  James  A.  Hillhouse.     New  York  Review,  1825. 


362  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

considered  as  actual  human  beings,  subject  to  the  common 
passions  and  infirmities  of  our  race,  and,  for  the  most  part,  to 
the  ordinary  influences  of  good  and  ill  fortune.  It  cannot 
surely  be  impious  to  suppose  that  what  we  are  told  of  them 
in  Scripture  is  not  the  whole  of  this  history.  We  are  not  for- 
bidden to  dwell  on  what  we  may  conceive  to  be  their  emo- 
tions in  the  various  passages  of  their  lives  which  are  recorded, 
nor  to  fancy  the  particulars  of  those  events  which  are  related 
only  in  general  terms,  nor  even  to  imagine  them  engaged  in 
adventures  of  which  no  account  has  come  down  to  us.  So 
long  as  this  is  done  in  such  a  manner  as  to  correspond  with 
what  is  related  of  their  characters  and  actions  in  Holy  Writ, 
we  cannot  see  that  anything  is  done  to  offend  the  most  delicate 
conscience.  We  cannot  see  that  it  has  the  least  tendency  to 
weaken  the  impression  produced  upon  us  by  the  narratives  of 
Scripture ;  on  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  us  that,  leading  the 
mind  to  dwell  upon  them  more  intently,  it  will  naturally 
deepen  and  confirm  it.  This  field  ought  at  least  to  be  as  free 
to  the  poet  as  to  the  pulpit  orator.  Nobody  thinks  of  passing 
a  censure  upon  the  latter  when,  suffering  his  imagination  to 
kindle  and  his  heart  to  become  warm  with  his  subject,  he  ex- 
patiates upon  the  fraternal  affection  of  Joseph,  or  amplifies 
the  filial  devotion  of  Ruth. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  form  in  which  the  poem  is  cast  can 
make  no  difference  with  the  principle  in  this  case.  It  is  im- 
material whether  it  be  dramatic  or  narrative,  as  long  as  it  is 
not  made  the  subject  of  scenic  representation  ;  for  no  greater 
liberty  is  taken  with  Scripture  history  in  the  one  case  than  in 
the  other. 

We  are  aware,  however,  that  it  may  be  further  said  that 
the  natural  effect  of  these  subjects  upon  the  mind  of  the 
writer  is  not  such  as  to  ensure  the  free  and  happy  exertion  of 
his  powers.  The  habitual  reverence  with  which  we  regard 
them  awes  and  represses  the  imagination.  The  dread  of  tak- 
ing improper  liberties  with  his  subject,  and  the  fear  of  offend- 
ing the  scruples  of  others,  act  as  shackles  upon  the  invention 


DRAMATIC   USE  OF  SCRIPTURE  CHARACTERS.      363 

of  the  writer ;  and,  amid  all  these  influences,  there  is  danger 
that  he  will  rest  in  common  places,  and  that  his  work  will  be 
tame  and  spiritless.  There  is  great  difficulty,  also,  in  awaken- 
ing in  the  mind  of  the  reader  a  strong  interest  in  the  charac- 
ters and  fortunes  of  the  personages  upon  whom  the  action 
of  the  piece  depends.  This  is  a  consequence  of  the  extraordi- 
nary dispensation  of  which  they  were  the  subjects.  There  is 
something  in  the  idea  of  mortals,  taken  into  so  intimate  a  rela- 
tion with  the  Divine  Being,  which  rebukes  and  repels  earthly 
sympathy. 

These  are  difficulties  —  serious  difficulties ;  but  they  are 
not  insurmountable.  They  render  the  work  of  the  poet 
arduous  —  not  impossible.  The  imagination  may  still  soar 
high,  and  the  invention  act  vigorously,  in  the  permitted  di- 
rection ;  and  that  sympathy  which  we  are  slow  to  yield  may 
still  be  wrung  from  us  by  the  truth  and  force  with  which  his 
scenes  and  situations  are  brought  home  to  our  hearts.  The 
great  epic  of  Milton  was  written  in  defiance  of  the  highest  de- 
gree of  these  difficulties,  yet  it  is  the  noblest  poem  in  our  lan- 
guage ;  nor  is  his  "  Paradise  Regained  "  unworthy  to  be  the 
last  work  of  so  great  a  man.  His  "  Samson  Agonistes,"  full 
of  grand  sentiments  and  strains  of  high  philosophy,  seems  to 
owe  its  want  of  dramatic  interest,  not  to  any  inherent  defect 
in  the  subject,  but  to  the  cold  model  of  the  Grecian  tragedy 
after  which  it  was  composed.  Cowley  appears  to  have  dis- 
continued the  writing  of  his  "  Davideis  "  because  it  was  not 
worth  finishing  ;  but  neither  would  it  have  been  had  the  sub- 
ject been  taken  from  profane  history.  In  our  time,  Byron,  in 
his  dramatic  poems  founded  on  subjects  taken  from  the  Script- 
ures, has  emancipated  himself,  as  might  be  expected,  even  from 
the  most  salutary  of  those  restraints  which  their  sacredness 
imposes  on  the  mind.  Along  with  many  interesting  situations, 
and  much  impassioned  sentiment,  they  contain  no  small  pro- 
portion of  indecency  and  blasphemy.  This  impiety,  however, 
is  by  no  means  the  consequence  of  his  choice  of  subjects ;  his 
choice  of  subjects  only  renders  his  impiety  the  more  palpable 

VOL.   II.— 24 


364  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

and  revolting.  Moore,  in  his  "  Loves  of  the  Angels,"  is  ap- 
parently too  little  in  earnest  to  be  deeply  interesting;  he 
dallies  too  idly  with  his  subject,  and  his  pretty  amatory  lan- 
guage has  an  unnatural  sound  in  the  mouths  of  celestials.  In 
the  instance  of  Montgomery,  however,  it  should  seem  that  a 
sacred  subject  has  imparted,  to  a  genius  of  no  great  original 
power  and  unwonted  spring  and  vigor,  a  deeper  pathos  and 
a  finer  play  of  imagination.  His  "  World  before  the  Flood  " 
we  think  altogether  the  best  of  his  larger  poems.  The  sacred 
dramas  of  Milman  are  admitted  to  be  superior  to  anything 
else  that  he  has  written.  They  certainly  possess  great  tragic 
effect,  and,  though  composed  with  little  skill  in  the  delineation 
of  character,  and  overloaded  with  ambitious  ornament,  are 
yet  much  sought  after,  and  read  with  interest  and  pleasure. 
It  is  owing,  we  suspect,  to  some  other  cause  than  the  chilling 
influence  of  such  subjects  upon  the  powers  of  the  writers,  or 
their  want  of  attraction  over  the  minds  of  readers,  that  the 
"  Exodiad  of  Cumberland  "  is  forgotten,  that  the  "  Conquest 
of  Canaan  "  reposes  in  the  dust  of  the  bookseller's  shelves,  and 
that  the  sacred  dramas  of  Miss  Hannah  More  have  found 
little  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  light  age  for  which  they  were 
written. 

In  looking  over  the  names  of  those  English  poets  who  have 
made  use  of  the  materials  furnished  by  the  sacred  writings,  it 
will  appear  that,  generally  speaking,  wherever  great  powers 
of  mind  have  been  brought  to  work,  their  exertion  has  been 
attended  with  success ;  and  that  those  who  have  written  bad 
poems  owe  their  failure  quite  as  much  to  the  want  of  talent 
as  to  the  unfortunate  choice  of  a  subject.  Thus  we  have 
something  better  than  mere  theory  to  guide  us  in  this  discus- 
sion. The  very  history  of  our  literature  proves  that  these 
materials  may  be  converted  to  the  purposes  of  poetry,  and 
that  although,  perhaps,  not  the  most  attractive  in  their  nature, 
nor  the  best  adapted  to  the  favorable  execution  of  ordinary 
talents,  they  are  yet  capable  of  being  turned  to  good  account 
in  the  hands  of  a  master. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  SHERIDAN.  365 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  SHERIDAN.* 

IT  would  be  almost  impossible,  we  should  think,  for  the 
dullest  author  to  make  a  dull  book  of  Sheridan's  life,  provided 
he  had  used  what  the  lawyers  call  ordinary  diligence  in  col- 
lecting the  materials.  The  mixture  of  good  and  bad  qualities 
in  his  character,  the  romantic  adventures  of  his  early  youth, 
his  wit,  his  conviviality,  the  very  irregularity  of  his  private 
habits,  his  public  life,  his  eloquence,  his  parliamentary  dex- 
terity, his  intimacy  not  only  with  the  first  literary,  but  with  the 
most  eminent  political  men  of  his  time,  and  with  those  whose 
greatness  lay  only  in  their  titles,  as  ciphers  derive  a  value 
from  their  position,  his  connection  with  the  theatre,  and  the 
many  eccentric  adventures  with  which  it  must  have  thrown 
him  into  contact ;  in  short,  the  constant  existence  of  this  man 
in  the  midst  of  society,  in  all  its  various  modes  and  classes, 
must  have  afforded  a  rich  and  various  mine  of  anecdote,  such 
as  the  lives  of  few  men  offer.  With  a  little  less  tenderness  to 
the  reputation  of  Mr.  Sheridan,  and  a  little  more  fondness  for 
gossiping,  it  is  quite  clear  to  us  that  Mr.  Moore  might  have 
made  a  much  more  entertaining  book,  as  well  as  have  pre- 
sented us  with  a  more  faithful  view  of  Mr.  Sheridan's  character. 

We  are  not  disposed,  however,  to  complain  of  the  way  in 
which  he  has  chosen  to  execute  his  undertaking,  nor  to  blame 
him  for  the  oblivion  in  which  he  is  willing  to  leave  the  infirmi- 
ties of  his  friend.  He  has  given  us  a  graver  book  than  we 
should  expect  from  one  wit  writing  the  life  of  another;  but 
very  interesting  withal,  and  quite  sensible,  as  well  as  quite 
characteristic  of  the  vivacity  and  activity  of  the  writer's  mind. 

One  excellence  in  Mr.  Moore's  work  is  that,  with  all  its 
tenderness  to  the  blemishes  of  Sheridan's  character,  and  all 
the  ideal  coloring  which  he  spread  over  it,  there  is  still  enough 

*  From  a  review  of  Moore's  "  Life  of  Sheridan,"  "  New  York  Review,"  1826. 


366  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

of  truth  in  his  delineation  to  enable  us  to  distinguish  pretty 
clearly  both  the  good  and  the  evil  ingredients  of  which  it  was 
compounded.  At  this  distance  from  the  country  in  which  he 
flourished,  we  can  consider  his  character  almost  as  impartially 
as  if  we  were  not  his  contemporaries ;  and,  with  the  materials 
furnished  by  Mr.  Moore,  it  is  not  difficult  to  estimate  it  fairly^ 
It  was  the  misfortune  of  Sheridan  that  his  animal  nature,  if 
we  may  so  speak,  had  so  much  the  mastery  over  his  intellect- 
ual. He  not  only  loved  pleasure  with  a  more  impetuous  fond- 
ness, but  suffered  less  from  the  excessive  pursuit  of  it  than 
most  men.  The  strength  of  his  constitution,  the  possession  of 
high  health,  the  excitability  of  his  feelings,  and  his  fine  flow  of 
animal  spirits,  all  either  seconded  the  temptations  of  the  siren, 
or  secured  him  from  the  immediate  penalties  which  so  often 
follow  her  gifts.  In  proportion  to  his  love  of  pleasure  was  his 
hatred  of  labor.  No  man  loves  labor  for  its  own  sake — at  least 
not  until  long  habit  has  made  it  necessary — but  some  seem  origi- 
nally to  dread  and  hate  it  more  vehemently  than  others.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  imagine  anybody  more  unwilling  to  look 
this  severe  step-mother  of  greatness  and  virtue  in  the  face 
than  was  Sheridan.  This  disposition  showed  itself  while  he  was 
yet  a  school-boy,  and  seems  to  have  lost  no  strength  in  his  ma- 
turer  years.  He  never  had,  he  never  would  have,  any  regular 
pursuit,  for  neither  his  connection  with  the  theatre  nor  his 
parliamentary  career  deserve  this  name.  He  avoided  all  peri- 
odical industry ;  it  was  a  principle  of  his  conduct  to  delay  every- 
thing to  the  last  possible  moment ;  and  his  whole  life  seems  to 
have  been  a  series  of  experiments  to  escape,  or  at  least  to 
put  off  to  another  day,  that  greatest  of  evils — labor.  Yet  he 
was  capable,  in  a  high  degree,  of  intellectual  exertion ;  and  the 
instances  in  which  he  submitted  himself  to  it  are  so  many 
successful  experiments  of  the  force  of  his  genius.  His  politi- 
cal career  was  marked  by  the  same  unpersevering  character 
as  his  private  life.  He  was  ambitjous,  but  his  was  not  that 
deep-seated  ambition  which  broods  long  over  its  plans,  and 
follows  and  watches  them,  year  after  year,  with  unexhausted 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  SHERIDAN.  367 

patience.  If  a  single  blow  could  prostrate  the  party  he  op- 
posed, Sheridan  was  the  man  to  strike  it — and  with  great 
force ;  but  it  was  not  for  him  to  assail  it  with  attacks,  continu- 
ally repeated,  till  it  was  overthrown.  After  a  powerful  effort, 
he  would  turn  again  to  his  pleasures  and  dissipations  until 
they  palled  upon  him,  or  until  the  entreaties  of  friendship,  or 
some  sudden  excitement  of  feeling,  recalled  him  to  the  war- 
fare. That  such  a  man  should,  notwithstanding,  have  exerted 
himself  so  far  as  to  produce  those  celebrated  comedies  and 
speeches  which  were  the  admiration  of  his  age,  may  be  easily 
accounted  for  on  these  views  of  his  character/  His  indolence 
was  not  of  that  dreamy  kind  which  delights  in  visions  of  its 
own  creation  ;  no  man  was  less  imaginative  than  Sheridan.  It 
is  true  that  there  are  some  attempts  at  fancy  in  his  writings, 
but  they  do  not  seem  to  be  the  natural  effusions  of  his  mind. 
They  were  evidently  written  for  display,  and  consist  of  broken 
images  laboriously  brought  together.  Indeed,  it  would  proba- 
bly have  been  fortunate  for  him  had  he  delighted  more  in  rev- 
eries of  the  imagination,  for  it  is  the  tendency  of  these  to  make 
us  look  with  a  kind  of  dissatisfaction  on  the  world  about  us ; 
but  it  was  the  error  and  the  danger  of  Sheridan  that  he  loved 
that  world,  and  its  splendors  and  its  pleasures,  quite  too  well. 
He  was  not  disposed  to  search  for  imaginary  enjoyments,  but 
to  possess  himself  greedily  and  immoderately  of  those  within 
his  reach.  He  was  the  creature  of  society;  its  light  and 
changing  excitements  were  the  food  of  his  mind  ;  and  to  daz- 
zle and  astonish  it  was  a  pleasure  which  he  enjoyed  with  the 
highest  zest.  This  is  the  secret  of  those  irregular  and  brief, 
but  for  the  time  vigorous,  sallies  of  industry.  Everything  with 
him  was  planned  for  effect;  his  comedies,  his  operas,  his 
speeches,  are  all  brilliant,  showy,  and  taking.  His  more  elabo- 
rate efforts,  however,  were  stimulated  by  the  additional  mo- 
tive of  necessity.  "The  Rivals"  and  "The  Duenna""  were 
written  when  he  was  forced  to  think  of  doing  something  for  a 
livelihood,  and  the  "  School  for  Scandal  "  at  the  same  period. 
All  his  exertions  respected  some  immediate  advantage.  He 


368  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

loved  to  shine,  but  thought  not  of  laying  up  fame  for  future 
ages  ;  just  as  he  loved  the  enjoyments  of  wealth,  but  chose  not 
to  perplex  himself  for  its  accumulation  and  preservation.  It 
was  characteristic  of  Sheridan  that  he  was  too  economical  of 
labor  even  to  labor  in  vain.  All  the  quips  and  jests  and  smart 
things  which  came  into  his  head  he  treasured  up  for  the  con- 
vivial meeting  or  the  floor  of  Parliament.  He  came  fresh 
from  his  stolen  studies,  on  subjects  of  which  he  was  before 
ignorant,  to  make  a  splendid  speech  about  them  before  the 
vividness  of  his  new  impressions  had  faded  from  his  mind. 
Among  the  few  papers  left  behind  him,  it  would  seem,  from 
the  extracts  given  us  by  Mr.  Moore,  that  there  was  nothing  on 
which  much  study  had  been  expended,  nor  which  was  in  itself 
capable  of  being  made  valuable. 

Sheridan  was  a  man  of  quick  but  not  deep  feelings;  of 
sudden  but  not  lasting  excitements.  He  was  not  one  of  those 
who  suffer  a  single  passion  to  influence  the  whole  course  of 
their  lives.  Even  the  desire  to  dazzle  by  his  wit,  great  as  was 
its  power  over  him,  was  not  always  awake,  for  we  are  told 
that  he  would  sometimes  remain  silent  for  hours  in  company, 
too  lazy  to  invent  a  smart  saying  for  the  occasion,  but  idly 
waiting  for  the  opportunity  to  apply  some  brilliant  witticism 
already  in  his  memory.  His  writings  themselves  show  that 
he  never  dwelt  long  enough  on  any  particular  feeling  to  ana- 
lyze it ;  the  few  attempts  at  sentimentalism  they  contain  are 
excessively  false  and  affected ;  their  excellence  lies  wholly  in 
a  different  way.  His  romantic  love  for  the  beautiful,  amiable, 
and  accomplished  woman  who  became  his  wife,  though  his 
biographer  would  have  us  believe  that  it  continued  unabated 
to  the  end  of  her  life,  seems  to  have  operated  on  his  mind  only 
at  intervals,  for  it  is  hinted  in  this  very  book  that  it  was  not 
steady  enough  to  secure  his  fidelity.  Her  death,  and  that  of 
her  little  daughter,  who  soon  followed  her,  deeply  as  they 
affected  him  at  the  time,  threw  no  cloud  over  his  after-life. 
His  griefs  might  have  been  violent,  but  they  were  certainly 
brief,  and  he  quickly  forgot  them  when  he  came  to  look  again 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  SHERIDAN.  369 

at  the  sunny  side  of  things.  Even  his  political  disappoint- 
ments do  not  seem  in  the  least  to  have  soured  his  temper,  or 
abated  his  readiness  to  adopt  new  hopes  and  new  expedients. 
Indeed,  it  seems  not  improbable,  from  some  appearances  of 
pliancy  in  his  political  character,  that,  had  not  his  daily  habits 
enfeebled  the  vigor  of  his  mind  and  shortened  a  life  which 
great  robustness  of  constitution  seemed  to  have  marked  out 
for  a  late  old  age,  he  might  have  long  continued  a  favorite 
with  the  present  sovereign  of  England. 

Some  of  the  excellences  of  Sheridan's  character  were  such 
as  could  not  easily  suffer  by  this  disposition  to  indolence  and 
pleasure.  That  a  man  possessing  an  abundant  flow  of  agreea- 
ble animal  sensations,  determined  to  make  a  matter  of  enjoy- 
ment of  everything,  and  to  avoid  everything  in  the  shape  of 
care,  should  have  possessed  Likewise  an  engaging  good  nature, 
is  by  no  means  extraordinary.  That  he  who  had  no  solitary 
pleasures,  but  whose  happiness  was  in  some  way  connected 
with  that  of  those  about  him,  should  be  obliging,  generous, 
and  humane,  is  almost  a  natural  consequence.  The  man  who 
lives  only  among  and  by  his  friends  is  naturally  led  to  study 
the  art  of  making  friendships.  Nor  is  the  frankness  and  open- 
ness of  Sheridan's  disposition  any  less  in  harmony  with  the 
rest  of  his  character.  It  is  not  among  men  of  his  tempera- 
ment that  we  are  to  look  for  the  habit  of  dissimulation,  for 
concealed  designs,  and  the  weaving  and  carrying  on  of  frauds 
and  artifices.  The  labor  and  perplexity  of  falsehood  were 
with  him  sufficient  objection,  had  no  other  existed,  to  the  prac- 
tice of  it.  The  anxious  and  persevering  necessity  to  provide 
against  detection  he  left  to  those  who  were  more  steadily  dili- 
gent than  himself.  Had  the  practice  of  deceit  been  as  easy  as 
that  of  integrity,  we  are  not  sure  that  Sheridan  would  not 
have  fallen  into  it,  induced  by  the  prospect  of  immediate  and 
present  advantages  which  it  always  holds  out — for  it  seems 
that  he  had  not  sufficient  firmness  of  principle  to  resist  the 
temptations  of  many  other  vices. 


370  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 


BONAPARTE'S  CORSICAN  TRAITS.* 

THE  name  of  Corsica  is  associated  in  the  minds  of  most 
men,  not  with  that  of  its  great  hero  and  patriot  Paoli,  but  with 
that  of  a  Bonaparte  ;  and  it  would  be  a  curious  study  to  ex- 
amine how  far  the  peculiar  character  of  its  inhabitants  is  to 
be  traced  in  that  of  Napoleon,  and  how  far  the  state  of  society 
in  which  he  was  born  and  passed  his  boyish  years  may  be 
presumed  to  have  moulded  the  mind  of  him  of  whom  Europe 
so  long  stood  in  fear.  In  addition  to  what  was  already  known 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Corsica,  the  work  before  us  contains  many 
curious  particulars,  which  might  be  used  for  this  purpose. 

The  barbarism  and  ignorance  into  which  the  Corsicans  are 
sunk  are  beyond  those  of  almost  any  European  nation.  Even 
the  Russian,  notwithstanding  he  is  flogged,  if  we  may  believe 
Dr.  Clarke,  every  hour  in  the  day,  is  his  superior  in  point  of 
civilization  ;  he  lives  in  a  more  comfortable  dwelling,  and  culti- 
vates his  fields  with  far  greater  skill.  We  have  heard  some- 
what of  the  degeneracy  and  degradation  of  modern  Greeks, 
but  they  are  a  polished  and  enlightened  people  compared 
with  the  Corsicans.  A  colony  of  Mainotes,  who  were  planted 
on  this  island  many  years  ago  by  the  Genoese,  and  of  whom 
the  remains  are  now  settled  in  Ajaccio,  excited  the  wonder  and 
jealousy  of  the  natives  by  building  commodious  houses,  cul- 
tivating gardens,  planting  fine  vineyards,  possessing  thriving 
flocks  and  herds,  and  living  in  every  respect  in  a  style  of  com- 
fort new  to  the  Corsicans. 

(The  reviewer  adds  several  pages  descriptive  of  Corsican 
life,  and  then  continues  :) 

....  It  was  this  singular  and  oppressed  race  of  men  that, 
in  our  time,  has  given  to  Europe  an  emperor  whose  reign  did 

*  From  a  review  of  Robert  Benson's  "  Sketches  of  Corsica."  "  New  York  Re- 
view," 1826. 


BONAPARTE'S  CO  RSI  CAN  TRAITS. 


371 


more  to  change  the  condition  of  that  continent  than  any  politi- 
cal event  which  has  happened  since  the  irruption  of  the  north- 
ern nations.  It  shook  and  overthrew  the  old  Gothic  institu- 
tions, and  brought  back,  in  some  degree,  the  state  of  things 
that  existed  before  them.  The  days  of  the  Lower  Empire 
seemed  to  have  returned,  not  only  in  the  rapidity  with  which 
the  kingdoms  of  Europe  changed  masters,  but  in  the  humble 
origin  of  those  who  were  raised  to  sit  upon  their  thrones,  and 
of  those  chiefs  and  warriors  who  stood  around  them  and  up- 
held them.  The  parallel  to  the  history  of  that  period  is  to  be 
found  in  those  times  when  a  Dacian  herdsman,  and  after  him 
a  Thracian  soldier,  were  invested  with  the  imperial  purple. 
Yet,  if  the  world  must  have  a  master,  Corsica  was  not  un- 
worthy to  give  it  one.  The  rude  island  was  in  many  respects 
a  fitting  nurse  of  those  qualities  which  lead  to  the  summit  of 
military  glory.  It  would  indeed  be  hardly  possible  for  a  set- 
tled state  of  society,  a  state  of  submission  to  the  laws,  and  of 
personal  security,  to  form  a  proper  temperament  for  pushing 
one's  fortune  to  such  a  height  as  Napoleon  carried  his  ;  still 
less  could  we  expect  to  see  it  spring  up  in  the  enervating  at- 
mosphere of  courts.  That  constant  presence  of  mind,  that 
cool  and  quick  speculation  on  emergencies  which  startled  and 
took  away  the  power  of  reflection  from  other  men,  and  that 
incredible  promptitude  of  expedients  which  he  possessed, 
could  nowhere  be  so  perfectly  acquired  as  in  a  country  where 
personal  danger  is  a  thing  of  course,  where  it  besets  every 
man  from  his  childhood,  where  it  lurks  about  his  dwelling 
and  lies  in  ambush  in  his  path,  and  where  his  vigilance  is  al- 
ways awake  and  his  sagacity  always  in  exercise  to  avert  it 
or  to  encounter  it.  These  qualities  were  what  such  a  man  as 
Napoleon  needed  most,  and  these  are,  in  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree, common  to  every  Corsican  peasant.  When  they  had  re- 
ceived a  direction  in  Napoleon's  mind  by  the  severities  of  a 
military  education,  when  he  had  been  taught  to  become  as  per- 
severing as  he  was  ardent,  when  he  had  added  a  knowledge  of 
the  science  of  war,  as  practiced  in  Europe,  to  those  military 


372  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

dispositions  of  mind  acquired  in  a  school  of  which  the  rest  of 
Europe  knew  nothing,  his  advantage  over  other  men  was  im- 
mense. It  was  probably  that  contempt  of  the  female  sex  be- 
longing to  the  Corsican  people  that  prevented  Bonaparte, 
with  an  Italian  warmth  of  constitution  and  no  great  disposi- 
tion to  regulate  his  amours  by  any  strict  notions  of  morals, 
from  becoming,  like  too  many  other  monarchs,  the  slave  of 
women.  He  boasted,  with  truth,  that  he  never  suffered  them 
to  gain  an  ascendancy  over  him,  or  to  cause  him  to  withdraw 
his  eyes  for  a  moment  from  his  projects  of  ambition.  Had  he 
been  the  founder  of  a  new  religion  instead  of  a  mighty  em- 
pire, he  would  probably  have  assigned  to  them  no  higher  im- 
portance in  his  system  than  did  Mohammed.  His  lofty  and 
far-reaching  ambition  was  only  Corsican  pride,  operating  in  a 
wider  and  grander  sphere.  The  florid  but  emphatic  and  ef- 
fectual eloquence  with  which  he  animated  his  soldiers  in  the 
battle  was  equally  characteristic  of  the  race  to  which  he  be- 
longed. Add  to  all  this  the  Corsican  disregard  of  law  and 
defiance  of  authority,  and  you  have  a  man  disposed  to  ac- 
knowledge no  superior,  fitted  to  dare  and  to  do  all  that  is  pos- 
sible to  military  skill  and  strength  to  overthrow  established 
governments  and  to  rule  the  world. 

It  is  somewhat  singular  that  Napoleon  should  never  have 
distinguished  his  native  island  by  any  particular  marks  of  his 
favor,  and  that  he  should  have  done  nothing  to  improve  the 
condition  of  a  part  of  his  dominions  which  needed  improve- 
ment the  most.  In  early  life  he  had  joined  the  party  who 
wished  to  keep  the  inhabitants  under  the  yoke  of  the  French, 
who  had  bought  them  of  Genoa,  and  whom  they  hated  ;  and 
afterward,  when  he  ascended  the  throne  of  France,  he  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  them.  He  could  talk  in  his  exile  at  St. 
Helena  of  the  affection  he  still  felt  toward  the  country  of  his 
birth,  of  the  sublimity  of  its  scenery,  the  fragrance  of  its  air, 
the  hospitality  and  high  spirit  of  its  inhabitants,  and  the  happy 
days  of  his  youth  spent  in  wandering  among  its  mountains 
and  making  himself  an  inmate  of  its  cottages.  He  could 


EFFECT  OF  CLIMATE  ON  AGE. 


373 


wish,  too,  that,  at  his  abdication  in  1814,  he  had  reserved  to 
himself,  as  he  might  have  done,  this  neglected  country.  Cor- 
sica, however,  owed  him  nothing  in  his  lifetime,  and  at  his 
death  she  received  no  share  of  the  plunder  of  Europe.  The 
Corsicans  do  not  look  upon  contempt  for  the  country  of  one's 
birth  as  a  slight  offence  ;  and,  while  the  name  of  Paoli  is  pro- 
nounced among  them  only  with  veneration,  no  honors  are 
paid  to  the  memory  of  Bonaparte. 


EFFECT  OF  CLIMATE  ON  AGE.* 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  complaints  made  of  our  variable 
climate,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  has  its  advantages  and  its 
beauties.  We  have  sometimes  the  frosts  of  a  Siberian  winter, 
and  sometimes  the  continued  heats  of  a  West  India  summer; 
but  we  have  days  of  the  most  delicious  temperature,  the 
clearest  and  bluest  skies,  the  brightest  sunshine,  and  the  most 
inspiring  airs.  We  have  the  word  of  an  artist — who  lived 
years  in  Italy,  and  who  has  as  fine  an  eye  for  nature  as  ever 
looked  upon  her  works — that  he  has  seen  as  glorious  evenings 
here  as  ever  flushed  the  skies  of  that  picturesque  country  ;  not 
so  many  of  them,  perhaps,  but  still  to  the  full  as  beautiful. 
The  praise  which  has  been  bestowed  so  lavishly  on  the  beauty 
of  the  skies  of  Italy  comes  from  those  who  were  nurtured 
under  the  pale  climate  of  England.  Jefferson,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, was  glad  to  escape  from  the  moist  and  clouded 
skies  of  Paris  to  the  drier  atmosphere  and  sunnier  skies  of 
Virginia.  A  distinguished  and  intelligent  Hollander,  who  had 
resided  in  France,  Switzerland,  and  England,  and  who  reached 
his  eightieth  year  in  this  country,  always  maintained  that  we 
have  one  of  the  best  climates  in  the  world.  He  was  desirous 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  March  I,  1832. 


374  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

of  living  in  his  native  country,  but,  being  subject  to  asthmatic 
affection,  found  the  fogs  of  that  country  too  dense  for  his 
lungs.  We  have  heard  him  rail,  in  good-set  terms,  at  the 
famed  climate  of  Montpelier,  for  its  easterly  winds  and  raw, 
damp  atmosphere.  The  towns  of  England  do  not  experience 
the  intense  cold  during  winter  that  we  do,  but  they  are  wrapt 
in  almost  perpetual  fogs  and  wet  with  drizzling  rains  that 
scarcely  cease.  We  have  before  us  at  this  moment  a  letter 
from  Dr.  Burgess,  of  Leicestershire,  to  the  editor  of  the  "  Lon- 
don Courier,"  in  which  he  is  laboring  to  prove  that  the  cholera 
will  not  be  so  fatal  in  the  climate  of  England  as  it  has  been 
on  the  Continent,  and  among  other  reasons  he  mentions  "  the 
quick  succession  and  vicissitudes  of  dry  and  wet — the  utmost  pre- 
valence of  the  former  scarcely  ever  continuing  long  enough 
to  induce  disease  from  that  cause  alone,  and  the  long  duration 
of  the  latter  being  timely  succeeded  by  genial  and  favorable 
alternations."  This  is  an  equivocal  compliment  either  to  the 
beauty  or  steadiness  of  the  climate  of  England.  There  is  a 
prevailing  notion  that  the  period  of  decay  in  the  human  con- 
stitution arrives  earlier  here  than  in  the  mother  country,  and 
that  the  duration  of  human  life  is  shorter  in  consequence  of 
the  climate.  Let  us  see  how  this  is.  Dr.  Kitchener  dates  the 
commencement  of  the  decline  of  the  physical  faculties  at  the 
age  of  forty-two. ,  Crabbe,  in  one  of  his  tales,  puts  it  four 
years  later: 

"  Six  years  had  past,  and  forty  ere  the  six, 
When  time  began  to  play  his  usual  tricks." 

And  then  he  goes  on,  in  his  fine  manner,  to  describe  the  circum- 
stances which  mark  the  abatement  of  bodily  activity  and  the 
growing  disinclination  to  exertion  belonging  to  that  time  of 
life.  We  leave  it  to  be  decided  by  the  experience  of  our 
countrymen  whether  the  period  of  decline  in  the  animal 
powers  arrives  earlier  than  this ;  whether  in  this  country 
men  begin  to  feel  the  approaches  of  age  before  forty-six. 
We  believe  not.  An  Englishman  of  fifty  may  have  as  fair 


EFFECT  OF  CLIMATE  ON  AGE. 


375 


and  fresh  a  complexion  as  an  American  at  thirty ;  but  this  is 
the  mere  effect  of  a  moist  and  shaded  sky.  We  are  a  more 
spare  and  meagre  race  than  the  English — and,  indeed,  than 
most  of  the  nations  of  Europe.  Artists  will  tell  you  that  the 
difference  between  Americans  and  the  natives  of  Europe  in 
the  fleshy  parts  of  the  human  frame  is  astonishing.  The 
tendency  to  corpulency  there  is  much  greater  than  with  us, 
and  is  distinguishable  even  in  the  hands,  which  with  us  are 
lean  and  bony,  and  with  the  Europeans  plumper  and  fatter. 
This  is  no  advantage,  but  it  keeps  the  skin  smooth  and  pre- 
vents the  approach  of  wrinkles,  which  are  looked  upon  as  one 
of  the  signs  of  old  age. 

We  remember  once  hearing  an  ingenious  medical  friend 
remark  that  the  difference  between  people  who  grow  old  in 
England  and  those  who  grow  old  in  this  country  is  that  the 
former  bloat  up  and  the  latter  dry  up.  Old  age  among  us  is 
less  unwieldy.  We  can  point  to  many  a  man, 

"  adust  and  thin, 
In  a  dun  night-gown  of  his  own  loose  skin," 

who  yet  preserves  all  the  vigor  of  mind  and  activity  of  body 
which  distinguished  his  greener  years.  The  same  man  in  the 
climate  of  England  would  have  been  more  round  and  rosy, 
with  better  teeth,  perhaps,  for  they  decay  in  this  country 
sooner  than  there,  with  fewer  wrinkles,  but,  after  all,  no 
younger  in  constitution  and  no  farther  from  the  close  of 
life.  There  are  no  such  prodigies  of  corpulence  among  us 
as  Louis  XVIII,  who  was  obliged  to  be  rolled  in  a  go-cart, 
being  too  unwieldy  to  walk,  and  who  finally  burst  with  obesi- 
ty. There  are  no  cases  like  that  of  George  IV,  who  perished, 
as  was  said,  from  a  collection  of  fat  about  the  heart,  which 
prevented  it  from  performing  its  functions.  Whatever  be 
the  cause  of  the  difference  in  the  human  frame  on  the  two 
continents,  whatever  it  be  that  makes  our  countrymen  taller 
and  more  spare  than  the  Europeans,  whether  it  arises  from 
the  violent  alternation  of  cold  and  heat,  or  from  a  difference  in 


3/6  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

the  electric  state  of  the  atmosphere,  it  is  enough  that  it  has  no 
effect  to  shorten  life.  The  same  difference  has  been  remarked 
in  some  kinds  of  animals ;  the  climate  is  said  to  elongate  their 
forms ;  and  there  are  not  wanting  those  who  think  they  have 
observed  it  also  in  trees  and  plants.  It  is  a  physical  variety, 
but  not  an  unhealthy  one,  and  is  produced  by  causes  equally 
friendly  to  the  existence  of  the  human  species.  It  has  been 
stated  that  of  the  population  of  London  only  one  in  forty 
arrives  at  the  age  of  seventy.  We  have  before  us  the  bills 
of  mortality  for  the  city  of  New  York  for  five  years,  com- 
mencing with  1826,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  average 
number  of  deaths  of  persons  over  seventy  years  of  age  is  one 
in  twenty-seven. 

As  respects  the  moral  effect  of  our  climate,  there  is  nothing 
to  complain  of.  The  inhabitants  of  lands  blessed  with  a  soft 
and  equable  temperature  are  apt  to  be  voluptuous ;  the  people 
of  less  genial  regions  have  made  the  greatest  advances  in  civ- 
ilization, and  carried  the  arts  and  sciences  to  their  highest  per- 
fection. Labor  is  never  loved  for  its  own  sake ;  men  require 
severe  necessity,  or  some  desire,  to  sting  them  into  activity. 
Our  climate,  while  it  presents  many  of  the  beautiful  phe- 
nomena of  those  which  are  reckoned  the  finest,  is  yet  (for 
the  truth  must  be  acknowledged)  variable,  capricious,  and 
severe,  and  exacts  more  ingenuity  and  foresight  in  guard- 
ing against  the  extremes  to  which  it  is  subject  than  almost 
any  other. 


ABOLITION  RIOTS.* 

A  MEETING  of  the  people  of  Cincinnati  have  proclaimed 
the  right  of  silencing  the  expression  of  unpopular  opinions  by 
violence.  We  refer  our  readers  to  the  proceedings  of  an  anti- 

*From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  August  8,  1836. 


ABOLITION  RIOTS. 


377 


abolition  meeting  lately  held  in  that  city.  They  will  be  found 
in  another  part  of  this  paper. 

The  Cincinnati  meeting,  in  .the  concluding  resolution  of- 
fered by  Wilson  N.  Brown  and  adopted  with  the  rest,  declare 
in  so  many  words  that,  if  they  cannot  put  down  the  abolition- 
ist press  by  fair  means,  they  will  do  it  by  foul ;  if  they  cannot 
silence  it  by  remonstrance,  they  will  silence  it  by  violence ;  if 
they  cannot  persuade  it  to  desist,  they  will  stir  up  mobs 
against  it,  inflame  them  to  madness,  and  turn  their  brutal  rage 
against  the  dwellings,  the  property,  the  persons,  the  lives  of 
the  wretched  abolitionists  and  their  families.  In  announcing 
that  they  will  put  them  down  by  force  all  this  is  included. 
Fire,  robbery,  and  bloodshed  are  the  common  excesses  of 
an  enraged  mob.  There  is  no  extreme  of  cruelty  and  de- 
struction to  which,  in  the  drunkenness  and  delirium  of  its 
fury,  it  may  not  proceed.  The  commotions  of  the  elements 
can  as  easily  be  appeased  by  appeals  to  the  quality  of  mercy 
as  these  commotions  of  the  human  mind ;  the  whirlwind 
and  the  lightning  might  as  well  be  expected  to  pause  and 
turn  aside  to  spare  the  helpless  and  innocent  as  an  infuriated 
multitude. 

If  the  abolitionists  must  be  put  down,  and  if  the  community 
are  of  that  opinion,  there  is  no  necessity  of  violence  to  effect 
the  object.  The  community  have  the  power  in  their  own 
hands  ;  the  majority  may  make  a  law  declaring  the  discussion 
of  slavery  in  a  certain  manner  to  be  a  crime,  and  imposing 
penalties.  The  law  may  then  be  put  in  force  against  the  of- 
fenders, and  their  mouths  may  be  gagged  in  due  form  and 
with  all  the  solemnities  of  justice. 

What  is  the  reason  this  is  not  done  ?  The  answer  is  ready. 
The  community  are  for  leaving  the  liberty  of  the  press  un- 
trammelled ;  there  is  not  a  committee  that  can  be  raised  in 
any  of  the  State  legislatures  north  of  the  Potomac  who  will 
report  in  favor  of  imposing  penalties  on  those  who  declaim 
against  slavery  ;  there  is  not  a  legislature  who  would  sanction 
such  a  report ;  and  there  is  not  a  single  free  State  the  people 


378  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

of  which  would  sustain  a  legislature  in  so  doing.     These  are 
facts,  and  the  advocates  of  mob-law  know  them  to  be  so. 

Who  are  the  men  that  issue  this  invitation  to  silence  the 
press  by  violence  ?  Who  but  an  insolent,  brawling  minority, 
a  few  noisy  fanatics,  who  claim  that  their  own  opinions  shall 
be  the  measure  of  freedom  for  the  rest  of  the  community,  and 
who  undertake  to  overawe  a  vast,  pacific  majority  by  threats 
of  wanton  outrage  and  plunder?  These  men  are  for  erecting 
an  oligarchy  of  their  own  and  riding  rough-shod  over  the 
people  and  the  people's  rights.  They  claim  a  right  to  repeal 
the  laws  established  by  the  majority  in  favor  of  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  They  make  new  laws  of  their  own,  to  which 
they  require  that  the  rest  of  the  community  shall  submit,  and, 
in  case  of  a  refusal,  they  threaten  to  execute  them  by  the  min- 
istry of  a  mob.  There  is  no  tyranny  or  oppression  exercised 
in  any  part  of  the  world  more  absolute  or  more  frightful  than 
that  which  they  would  establish.  So  far  as  we  are  concerned, 
we  are  determined  that  this  despotism  shall  neither  be  sub- 
mitted to  nor  encouraged.  In  whatever  form  it  makes  its  ap- 
pearance, we  shall  raise  our  voice  against  it.  We  are  resolved 
that  the  subject  of  slavery  shall  be  as  it  ever  has  been — as  free 
a  subject  of  discussion  and  argument  and  declamation  as  the 
difference  between  whiggism  and  democracy,  or  the  difference 
between  the  Armenians  and  the  Calvinists.  If  the  press 
chooses  to  be  silent  on  the  subject,  it  shall  be  the  silence  of 
perfect  free-will,  and  not  the  silence  of  fear.  We  hold  that 
this  combination  of  the  few  to  govern  the  many  by  the  terror 
of  illegal  violence  is  as  wicked  and  indefensible  as  a  con- 
spiracy to  rob  on  the  highway.  We  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of 
good  citizens  to  protest  against  it  whenever  and  wherever  it 
shows  itself,  and  to  resist  it,  if  necessary,  to  the  death. 


FUNERAL   OF  AARON  BURR.  379 


FUNERAL  OF  AARON  BURR.* 

THE  remains  of  Aaron  Burr  were  on  Friday  committed 
to  the  earth  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  beside  the  graves  of 
President  Edwards  and  President  Burr,  his  father  and  grand- 
father. It  was  natural  enough  that  the  relatives  of  this  man 
should  wish  to  perform  his  obsequies  with  decency  and  pro- 
priety, but  we  protest  against  the  puffery  of  which  he  is  made 
the  object  in  the  public  prints,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  con- 
found all  moral  distinctions.  When  we  read  of  "  admiration 
for  his  greatness,"  "  respect  for  his  memory,"  and  "  condolence 
for  his  loss,"  we  are  tempted  to  ask  ourselves  if  the  commu- 
nity have  ceased  to  discriminate  between  the  good  and  bad 
actions  of  men.  The  truth  is,  nobody  is  to  be  condoled  with  for 
his  loss ;  no  respect  is  entertained  for  the  memory  of  one  so 
profligate  in  private  and  public  life  ;  and,  though  Colonel  Burr 
was  a  man  of  acute  and  active  mind,  he  did  not  rise  to  the  meas- 
ure of  intellectual  greatness,  as  he  certainly  was  at  a  deplora- 
ble distance  from  moral  greatness.  We  would  willingly  have 
passed  by  this  subject  in  silence,  but  these  remarks  have  been 
forced  from  us  by  what  we  must  regard  as  a  shameful  prosti- 
tution of  the  voice  of  the  press. 

Some  of  the  public  prints  are  indulging  in  anticipations  of 
the  publication  of  a  posthumous  record  of  Colonel  Burr's  po- 
litical and  personal  adventures,  prepared  under  his  direction 
for  the  press ;  and  they  are  essaying  to  awaken  a  prurient 
curiosity  concerning  them  by  the  intimation  that  they  contain 
disclosures  of  things  which  ought  never  to  be  revealed.  We 
have  no  expectation  of  advantage  to  the  cause  of  truth  or  of 
morals  from  the  appearance  of  such  a  work.  It  were  better 
that  the  memory  of  his  intrigues  should  die  with  him. 

•From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  September  19,  1836. 
VOL.  n. — 25 


380  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 


ON  USURY  LAWS.* 

THE  fact  that  the  usury  laws,  arbitrary,  unjust,  and  op- 
pressive as  they  are,  and  unsupported  by  a  single  substan- 
tial reason,  should  have  been  suffered  to  exist  to  the  present 
time,  can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  of  the  gen- 
eral and  singular  ignorance  which  has  prevailed  as  to  the 
true  nature  and  character  of  money.  If  men  would  but  learn 
to  look  upon  the  medium  of  exchange,  not  as  a  mere  sign  of 
value,  but  as  value  itself,  as  a  commodity  governed  by  pre- 
cisely the  same  laws  which  affect  other  kinds  of  property,  the 
absurdity  and  tyranny  of  legislative  interference  to  regulate 
the  extent  of  profit  which,  under  any  circumstances,  may  be 
charged  for  it,  would  at  once  become  apparent. 

The  laws  do  not  pretend  to  dictate  to  a  landlord  how  much 
rent  he  may  charge  for  his  house ;  or  to  a  merchant  what  price 
he  shall  put  upon  his  cloth  ;  or  to  a  mechanic  at  what  rate  he 
shall  sell  the  products  of  his  skill ;  or  to  a  farmer  the  maxi- 
mum he  shall  demand  for  his  hay  or  grain.  Yet  money  is  but 
another  form  into  which  all  these  commodities  are  transmuted, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  the  owner  of  it  shall  be  forbidden 
to  ask  exactly  that  rate  of  profit  for  the  use  of  it  which  its 
abundance  or  scarcity  makes  it  worth — no  reason  why  the  laws 
of  supply  and  demand,  which  regulate  the  value  of  all  other 
articles,  should  be  suspended  by  legislative  enactment  in  rela- 
tion to  this,  and  their  place  supplied  by  the  clumsy  substitute 
of  feudal  ignorance  and  worse  than  feudal  tyranny. 

The  value  of  iron  and  copper  and  lead  consists  of  exactly 
the  same  elements  as  the  value  of  gold  and  silver.  The  labor 
employed  in  digging  them,  the  quantity  in  which  they  are 
found,  and  the  extent  of  their  application  in  the  useful  arts,  or, 
in  other  words,  the  relation  of  the  demand  to  the  supply,  are 

*  From  the  "Evening  Post,"  September  26,  1836. 


ON  USURY  LAWS.  381 

the  circumstances  which  fix  their  market  price.  Should  some 
great  manufacture  be  undertaken  in  which  a  vast  additional 
amount  of  iron  or  copper  or  lead  would  be  used,  a  sudden 
and  considerable  rise  of  price  would  be  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence. Should  this  increased  demand  lead  to  any  valuable 
improvement  in  the  mining  art,  or  to  investigations  which 
should  discover  new  and  prolific  beds  of  ore,  a  corresponding 
fall  of  prices  would  occur.  These  fluctuations  are  continually 
taking  place,  and  an  attempt  to  prevent  them  by  state  legisla- 
tion would  be  about  as  effectual  as  the  command  of  the  barba- 
rian king  that  the  ocean  should  not  overpass  a  certain  bound. 
Silver  and  gold,  though  in  a  less  degree,  are  liable  to  precisely 
the  same  fluctuations  of  intrinsic  value,  and  to  seek  to  con- 
fine them  to  a  fixed  point  is  an  attempt  marked  by  equal 
folly. 

If,  then,  the  intrinsic  value  of  money  cannot  be  established 
by  law,  the  value  of  its  use  is  no  less  beyond  the  proper  com- 
pass of  legislation.  Though  a  certain  per  centum  is  established 
as  the  rate  which  may  be  demanded  for  the  use  of  money,  we 
find,  when  the  article  is  relatively  abundant,  that,  notwithstand- 
ing the  law,  a  much  lower  rate  is  received ;  and  why,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  money  is  scarce,  should  an  attempt  be  made 
to  prevent  it  from  rising  to  its  natural  level  ? 

Such  attempts  have  always  been,  and  always  will  be,  worse 
than  fruitless.  They  not  only  do  not  answer  the  ostensible 
object,  but  they  accomplish  the  reverse.  They  operate,  like  all 
restrictions  on  trade,  to  the  injury  of  the  very  class  they  are 
framed  to  protect ;  they  oppress  the  borrower  for  the  advan- 
tage of  the  lender  ;  they  take  from  the  poor  to  give  to  the  rich. 
How  is  this  result  produced  ?  Simply  by  diminishing  the 
amount  of  capital,  which,  in  the  shape  of  money,  would  be  lent 
to  the  community  at  its  fair  value,  did  no  restriction  exist,  and 
placing  what  is  left  in  the  most  extortionate  hands.  By  attach- 
ing a  stigma  and  a  penalty  to  the  innocent  act  of  asking  for 
money  what  money  is  worth,  when  that  value  rises  above 
seven  per  cent,  the  scrupulous  and  reputable  money-lenders 


382  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

are  driven  from  the  market  and  forced  to  employ  their  funds 
in  other  modes  of  investment.  The  supply,  the  inadequacy  of 
which  in  the  first  place  caused  the  increase  in  the  rate  of 
usance,  is  thus  still  further  diminished,  and  the  rate  of  usance 
necessarily  rises  still  higher.  The  loanable  funds,  too,  are 
held  only  by  those  who  do  not  scruple  to  tax  their  loans  with 
another  grievous  charge  as  security  against  the  penalty  im- 
posed by  an  unwise  law  ;  and  thus  our  Legislature,  instead  of 
assisting  the  poor  man,  but  makes  his  necessities  the  occasion 
of  sorely  augmenting  his  burden. 

But  usury  laws  operate  most  hardly  in  many  cases,  even 
when  the  general  rate  of  money  is  below  their  arbitrary  stand- 
ard. There  is  an  intrinsic  and  obvious  difference  between 
borrowers,  which  not  only  justifies  but  absolutely  demands,  on 
the  part  of  a  prudent  man  disposed  to  relieve  the  wants  of 
applicants,  a  very  different  rate  of  interest.  Two  persons  can 
hardly  present  themselves,  in  precisely  equal  circumstances,  to 
solicit  a  loan.  One  man  is  cautious  ;  another  is  rash.  One  is 
a  close  calculator,  sober  in  his  views,  and  unexcitable  in  his 
temperament ;  another  is  visionary  and  enthusiastic.  One  has 
tangible  security  to  offer ;  another  nothing  but  the  airy  one  of 
a  promise.  Who  shall  say  that  to  lend  money  to  these  several 
persons  is  worth  in  each  case  an  equal  premium  ? 

Should  a  person  come  to  us  with  a  project  which,  if  suc- 
cessful, will  yield  an  immense  return,  but,  if  unsuccessful,  leave 
him  wholly  destitute,  shall  we  not  charge  him  for  the  risk  we 
run  in  advancing  his  views?  The  advocates  of  usury  laws 
may  answer  that  we  have  it  at  our  option  either  to  take  seven 
per  cent  or  wholly  refuse  to  grant  the  required  aid.  True ; 
but  suppose  the  project  one  which  is  calculated,  if  successful, 
to  confer  a  vast  benefit  on  mankind.  Is  it  wise  in  the  Legisla- 
ture in  such  a  case  to  bar  the  door  against  ingenuity,  except 
the  money-lender  turns  philanthropist  and  jeopards  his  prop- 
erty, not  for  a  fair  equivalent,  but  out  of  mere  love  to  his  fel- 
low-man ? 

The  community  begin  to  answer  these  questions  aright,  and 


MR.    WEBSTER'S    WIT. 


383 

there  is  ground  for  hope  that  they  will  ere  long  insist  upon 
their  legislative  agents  repealing  the  entire  code  of  barbarous 
laws  by  which  the  trade  in  money  has  hitherto  been  fettered. 


MR.  WEBSTER'S  WIT.* 

THAT  men  of  some  wit  and  humor  have  lived  before  the 
present  age  is  not,  we  believe,  contested.  Not  to  speak  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  there  is  wit  in  Boccaccio,  and  wit  in  Ari- 
osto,  and  wit  in  Casti.  Witty  was  Rabelais,  and  witty  was 
Scarron,  and  witty,  in  another  way,  was  Paul  Courier.  There 
are  things  in  Cervantes  which  will  make  the  reader  laugh  in 
spite  of  himself ;  Moliere  has  been  known  to  coax  a  grin  from 
the  most  splenetic,  and  some  passages  in  Shakespeare  no  man 
can  read  or  hear  without  acknowledging  that  they  are  quite 
droll. 

These  authors  were  very  well  in  their  time,  and  some  of 
their  works  are  passable  even  now.  We  must  not  speak  dis- 
paragingly of  what  made  our  fathers  and  mothers  laugh.  It 
would  be  irreverent. 

But  the  age  for  wit  is  decidedly  the  present  age ;  and  the 
wittiest  man  of  the  time,  beyond  all  question,  is  Mr.  Webster, 
the  gentleman  spoken  of  last  summer  as  the  Whig  candidate 
for  the  presidency.  Wit  has  hitherto  been  only  in  the  bud — 
Mr.  Webster  is  the  full-blown  flower;  wit  has  till  now  re- 
mained in  the  clumsy  chrysalis  state — Mr.  Webster  is'  the 
broad-winged  butterfly.  We  have  had  indeed  the  promise  of 
wit,  but  Mr.  Webster  is  its  fulfilment  arid  perfection. 

On  Tuesday  evening  last  a  brilliant  festival  was  given  at 
East  Boston,  by  John  W.  Fenno,  Esq.,  in  honor  of  the  recent 
glorious  Whig  victories  in  New  York.  It  was  held  in  the 
Maverick  House,  the  largest  hotel  in  the  city,  gorgeously 

*  From  the  "Evening  Post,"  November  20,  1837. 


384  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

illuminated  for  the  occasion.  The  festivity  is  duly  chronicled 
in  the  columns  of  the  "  Boston  Centinel."  Elbridge  G.  Austin 
presided  at  the  dinner,  and  at  his  right  was  placed  the  witty 
Mr.  Webster.  Mr.  Austin  gave  a  toast  in  compliment  to  Mr. 
Webster,  and  Mr.  Webster  responded.  We  give  his  speech 
in  the  words  of  the  "  Boston  Centinel,"  cautioning  our  readers 
to  look  well  to  their  diaphragms,  and  to  hold  their  sides  with 
both  hands,  for  the  drollery  of  this  Mr.  Webster  is  irresistible. 

"  Mr.  Webster  rose  and  pronounced  a  most  eloquent  and  agree- 
able speech,  which  occupied  the  profound  attention  of  his  audience 
for  three  quarters  of  an  hour.  He  touched  happily  on  the  great 
questions  before  the  nation,  and  enlarged  on  the  glorious  results  of 
the  present  and  past  week,  and,  although  now  and  then  he  spoke  in 
the  most  serious  and  impressive  tones,  yet  at  other  times  he  was 
sportive  and  humorous  to  admiration,  and  kept  the  company  in  roars 
of  laughter.  He  remarked  pleasantly  that  at  the  approaching  ses- 
sion, when  he  should  go  to  Washington  and  call  on  the  President,  he 
should  probably  have  occasion  to  say :  '  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Van 
Buren  ?  How  go  the  times  ?  What  news  from  New  York  ? '  " 

"  The  effect  of  this  frank  colloquy  was  irresistible  ;  the  room  was 
convulsed  with  laughter.  It  was  all  uttered  with  so  much  pleasantry 
and  respect,  and  with  such  perfect  good  humor  and  naivete'  of  man- 
ner, that,  had  Mr.  Van  Buren  himself  been  present,  he  would  have 
forgotten  his  own  reverses  and  joined  heartily  in  the  laughing  all 
round  the  board.  Mr.  Webster  then  added  that  when  he  should  see 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  he  might  have  occasion  to  say  :  '  How 
is  Mr.  Woodbury  ?  What  are  the  exact  financial  statements  and  plans 
that  you  propose  to  report  for  our  consideration  ?  What  do  the  peo- 
ple say  of  your  sub-treasury  system  ?  '  These  words  were  accompanied 
by  appropriate  action,  and  the  effect  was  such  as  may  be  imagined, 
but  cannot  be  described." 

Ah,  the  wag !  We  are  tempted  to  say  to  Mr.  Webster  as 
the  negro  boy  said  to  Garrick  when  the  great  actor  had  stolen 
into  the  back-yard  and  was  personating  the  cock-turkey  for 
his  entertainment:  "  Massa  Webster,  you  make-a  me  die  wid 
laffin." 


SLAM,  BANG  &*  CO.  385 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Van  Buren  ?  What  news  from 
New  York  ?  How  is  Mr.  Woodbury  ?  What  do  people  say 
of  your  sub-treasury  system  ? "  Is  there  any  mortal  whose 
gravity  is  stern  enough  to  stand  anything  so  superlatively 
comic  as  this?  Why,  it  would  have  drawn  a  horse  laugh  from 
the  lungs  of  the  weeping  philosopher. 

We  take  it  upon  us  to  say  that  there  is  not  so  irresistible  a 
jest  in  the  works  of  all  the  wits  who  ever  wrote,  from  Lucian 
down  to  the  last  number  of  the  "  Pickwick  Papers  "  by  Boz. 

In  his  true  history  of  New  York,  Diedrich  Knickerbocker 
relates  the  fate  of  a  fat  little  Schopen  who  died  of  a  burgo- 
master's joke.  If  a  mere  burgomaster's  joke,  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  since,  when  wit  was  in  its  infancy,  could  do  such 
execution,  what  must  be  the  effect  of  the  joke  of  so  accom- 
plished a  wag  as  Mr.  Webster?  We  have,  however,  looked 
carefully  over  the  account  given  by  the  "  Boston  Centinel," 
and  we  find  no  return  of  the  killed.  How  is  this  ?  Is  there  no 
concealment  of  the  consequences  of  Mr.  Webster's  waggery  ? 


SLAM,  BANG  &  CO.* 

SHORT  work  is  made  in  certain  quarters  with  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Van  Buren  has  issued  his  message, 
and  the  Whig  journalists  have  answered  it  with  the  phrase 
"  Slam,  Bang  &  Co." 

It  is  wonderful  how  much  the  Whigs  make  of  the  combina- 
tion of  these  little  words,  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  Those  who  are 
not  in  the  habit  of  reading  the  journals  of  that  party  cannot 
imagine  to  what  a  degree  they  have  illuminated  and  enlivened 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  December  8,  1837.  At  this  time  the  Democratic 
party  in  New  York  numbered  among  its  leaders  gentlemen  of  the  not  euphonious 
names  of  Slamm,  Bangs,  and  Ming,  which,  furnishing  the  opposition  with  a  good  deal 
of  amusement,  provoked  this  reply.— ED. 


386  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND   CRITICISMS. 

their  columns  by  this  happy  invention.  Slam,  Bang  &  Co. 
stands  them  in  place  of  wit — it  stands  them  in  place  of  reason 
— it  is  their  resort  in  all  emergencies — it  is  their  answer  to  all 
arguments.  With  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  they  attack  their  ene- 
mies; with  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  they  protect  themselves  against 
attacks ;  it  is  their  weapon,  offensive  and  defensive. 

Pope,  in  his  "  Dunciad,"  speaks  of  certain  affectors  of  obso- 
lete phraseology 

"  Who  live  upon  a  ivhilome  for  a  week." 

But  this  is  a  trivial  feat  in  comparison  with  what  has  been 
done  by  certain  modern  Whig  journalists.  We  know  one  or 
two  who  have  lived  upon  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  for  a  twelvemonth. 
We  know  some  who  set  up  with  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  as  their 
whole  stock  in  trade,  and  have  carried  on  a  flourishing  busi- 
ness of  editorials  on  no  other  capital. 

One  of  Shakespeare's  clowns  boasts  of  having  invented  an 
answer  to  fit  every  question — using  always  the  simple  phrase, 
O  Lord,  Sir.  But  the  phrase  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  will  not  only 
answer  but  ask  all  questions ;  it  will  serve  as  a  commentary  to 
all  texts,  or  a  text  to  all  commentaries ;  it  will  furnish  matter 
for  a  squib  of  three  lines,  or  may  be  beaten  out  into  a  political 
disquisition  of  two  columns.  Reader,  if  you  are  the  conductor 
of  a  Whig  newspaper,  learn  this  mystery  at  once  ;  it  will  save 
you  all  expense  of  thinking.  If  you  wish  to  find  fault  with  a 
public  measure,  or  attack  a  public  candidate,  or  censure  a  pub- 
lic document,  or  condemn  a  political  doctrine,  print  the  words 
Slam,  Bang  &  Co.,  and  it  will  answer  your  purpose  without 
any  further  trouble.  Pepper  your  articles  well  with  Slam, 
Bang  &  Co.,  and  you  may  be  sure  they  will  be  swallowed. 

Useful  inventions  are  sometimes  long  in  being  adopted,  but 
they  are  sure  to  make  their  way  at  last.  One  or  two  grave 
journals,  which  were  slow  in  learning  the  trick  of  using  Slam, 
Bang  &  Co.,  now  begin  to  employ  them  with  a  praiseworthy 
diligence,  and  in  time  they  may  possibly  be  brought  to  utter 
them  with  as  much  flippancy  as  the  inventors  of  the  phrase. 


NEW   YORK  BIRD-CATCHERS.  387 

But,  after  all,  Slam,  Bang  &  Co.  is  not  the  superlative  de- 
gree. If  you  would  goad  your  enemies  with  the  utmost  keen- 
ness of  sarcasm,  if  you  would  wield  the  lightnings  of  the  most 
brilliant  wit,  and  crush,  confound,  and  annihilate  the  Democra- 
cy with  the  thunders  of  the  most  potent  argument,  you  must 
go  a  step  farther  and  utter  the  magic  words  Slam,  Bang, 
Ming  &  Co. 


NEW  YORK  BIRD-CATCHERS.* 

IN  the  first  volume  of  "  Hone's  Table-Book  "  is  an  engrav- 
ing of  a  London  Bird-Catcher  in  the  year  1827,  and  under  it 
are  printed  the  calls,  or  jerks,  as  they  are  technically  called — 
the  peculiar  sounds  and  articulations  of  the  voice  by  which 
the  people  of  this  profession  allure  wild  birds  within  their 
reach.  Our  readers  will  perhaps  be  amused  with  a  sample  of 
these  jerks. • 

Tuck— Tuck— Fear. 

Tuck— Tuck— Fear— Ic,  Ic,  Ic. 

Tuck — Tuck — Fear — Ic  quake-e  weet. 
[This  is  a  finished  jerk^\ 

Tolloc,  Ejup,  R — weet,  weet,  weet. 

Tolloc,  Tolloc,  cha — Ic,  Ic,  Ic. 

Lug,  Lug,  G— cha,  cha. 

Lug,  Lug— Orchee,  weet. 

New  York  has  its  bird-catchers  as  well  as  London.  One 
of  these  goes  under  the  name  of  the  "  Express."  He  has  estab- 
lished himself  at  the  corner  of  Wall  and  Water  Streets,  where 
he  practices  his  jerks  diligently  every  morning  for  the  catch- 
ing of  such  foolish  birds  as  he  finds  in  that  neighborhood. 
Here  is  a  sample  of  his  jerks : 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  June  27,  1838. 


388  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

Slam  Bang— Slam  Bang — Slam  Bang  &  Co. 
Slam  Bang — Slam  Bang — Slam  Bang  Ming  &  Co. 

[This  is  a.  finished  jerk.] 
Loco  Foco,  Loco  Foco — Jacques,  mob — Eli. 
Loco  Foco,  Loco  Foco — Eli  Hart's  flour  store — 
Flour  riot,  Flour  riot. 

Agrarians,  Agrarians — Fanny  Wright,  Fanny  Wright, 
Levellers,  Levellers,  Levellers — Jack  Cade,  Jack  Cade,  etc.,  etc. 

The  birds  allured  and  taken  by  means  of  these  calls  are 
chiefly  of  the  kinds  called  gulls,  boobies,  noodles,  doddrels,  and 
geese,  which  do  mostly  affect  maritime  places.  Plenty  of  lame 
ducks  which  haunt  the  neighborhood  where  the  bird-catcher 
has  established  himself  are  also  taken,  being  more  easily  made 
prisoners  on  account  of  their  disabled  state ;  and  that  fiercer 
fowl,  that  bird  of  prey,  the  kite,  which  delights  to  hover  over 
and  swoop  upon  his  victims  in  the  atmosphere  of  Wall  Street, 
is  often  by  these  calls  decoyed  into  the  net.  When  caught, 
the  birds  are  made  to  practice  the  jerks  which  we  have  given, 
until  they  become  quite  perfect  in  their  parts,  when  you  will 
hear  the  boobies,  noodles,  lame  ducks,  geese,  kites,  etc.,  call 
out  "  Slam  Bang,  Slam  Bang,  Jack  Cade,  Jack  Cade,"  etc., 
all  at  once,  with  astonishing  energy  and  correctness  of  accent. 
A  friend  of  ours  heard  the  words  Slam,  Bang,  Ming  &  Co. 
pronounced  by  one  of  these  birds  the  other  day  in  Broadway, 
not  far  from  Leonard  Street,  as  distinctly  as  the  bird-catcher 
himself  could  have  uttered  it.  A  great  black  and  white  bird 
called  the  "  Journal  of  Commerce,"  from  its  coming  out  every 
morning  and  hovering  over  the  shipping,  was  once  caught,  and 
for  two  or  three  mornings  uttered  the  words  Slam,  Bang  &  Co. 
as  distinctly  as  a  human  being,  of  which  there  are  at  present 
several  living  witnesses. 


SENSITIVENESS   TO  FOREIGN  OPINION.  389 


SENSITIVENESS  TO  FOREIGN  OPINION.* 

COOPER'S  last  work,  "  Home  as  Found,"  has  been  fiercely 
attacked,  in  more  than  one  quarter,  for  its  supposed  tendency 
to  convey  to  the  people  of  other  countries  a  bad  idea  of  our 
national  character.  Without  staying  to  examine  whether  all 
Mr.  Cooper's  animadversions  on  American  manners  are  per- 
fectly just,  we  seize  the  occasion  to  protest  against  this  exces- 
sive sensibility  to  the  opinion  of  other  nations.  It  is  no 
matter  what  they  think  of  us.  We  constitute  a  community 
large  enough  to  form  a  great  moral  tribunal  for  the  trial  of 
any  question  which  may  arise  among  ourselves.  There  is  no 
occasion  for  this  perpetual  appeal  to  the  opinions  of  Europe. 
We  are  competent  to  apply  the  rules  of  right  and  wrong 
boldly  and  firmly,  without  asking  in  what  light  the  superior 
judgment  of  the  Old  World  may  regard  our  decisions. 

It  has  been  said  of  Americans  that  they  are  vainglorious, 
boastful,  fond  of  talking  of  the  greatness  and  the  advantages 
of  their  country,  and  of  the  excellence  of  their  national  char- 
acter. They  have  this  foible  in  common  with  other  nations ; 
but  they  have  another  habit  which  shows  that,  with  all  their 
national  vanity,  they  are  not  so  confident  of  their  own  great- 
ness, or  of  their  own  capacity  to  estimate  it  properly,  as  their 
boasts  would  imply.  They  are  perpetually  asking,  What  do 
they  think  of  us  in  Europe?  How  are  we  regarded  abroad? 
If  a  foreigner  publishes  an  account  of  his  travels  in  this  coun- 
try, we  are  instantly  on  the  alert  to  know  what  notion  of  our 
character  he  has  communicated  to  his  countrymen ;  if  an 
American  author  publishes  a  book,  we  are  eager  to  know  how 
it  is  received  abroad,  that  we  may  know  how  to  judge  it  our- 
selves. So  far  has  this  humor  been  carried  that  we  have 
seen  an  extract,  from  a  third-  or  fourth-rate  critical  work  in 

*From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  January  II,  1839. 


390  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

England,  condemning  some  American  work,  copied  into  all 
our  newspapers  one  after  another,  as  if  it  determined  the 
character  of  the  work  beyond  appeal  or  question. 

For  our  part,  we  admire  and  honor  a  fearless  accuser  of 
the  faults  of  so  thin-skinned  a  nation  as  ours,  always  supposing 
him  to  be  sincere  and  well-intentioned.  He  may  be  certain 
that  where  he  has  sowed  animadversion  he  will  reap  an 
abundant  harvest  of  censure  and  obloquy.  We  will  have  one 
consolation,  however,  that  if  his  book  be  written  with  ability 
it  will  be  read  ;  that  the  attacks  which  are  made  upon  it  will 
draw  it  to  the  public  attention ;  and  that  it  may  thus  do  good 
even  to  those  who  recalcitrate  most  violently  against  it. 

If  every  man  who  writes  a  book,  instead  of  asking  himself 
the  question  what  good  it  will  do  at  home,  were  first  held  to 
inquire  what  notions  it  conveys  of  Americans  to  persons  abroad, 
we  should  pull  the  sinews  out  of  our  literature.  There  is 
much  want  of  free-speaking  as  things  stand  at  present,  but 
this  rule  will  abolish  it  altogether.  It  is  bad  enough  to  stand 
in  fear  of  public  opinion  at  home,  but,  if  we  are  to  superadd 
the  fear  ot  public  opinion  abroad,  we  submit  to  a  double  des- 
potism. Great  reformers,  preachers  of  righteousness,  eminent 
satirists  in  different  ages  of  the  world — did  they,  before  enter- 
ing on  the  work  they  were  appointed  to  do,  ask  what  other 
nations  might  think  of  their  countrymen  if  they  gave  utter- 
ance to  the  voice  of  salutary  reproof  ? 


A  REPLY  TO  ATTACKS.* 

WE  are  sometimes  inquired  of  why  we  do  not  oftener  an- 
swer the  attacks  so  frequently  made  upon  the  "  Evening  Post  " 
in  other  journals.  Burger,  the  German  poet,  shall  answer  for 
us: 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  June  7,  1839. 


A  REPLY   TO  ATTACKS. 


391 


"  A  plain  man,"  says  Burger,  "  on  a  fine  morning,  passed  in  his 
walk  the  door  of  an  ale-house.  A  dog,  whose  collar  was  hung  round 
with  little  bells,  sprung  out,  tinkling  his  bells  and  barking  at  him  with 
the  greatest  fury.  The  plain  man  paid  him  no  attention,  and,  without 
even  lifting  his  cane  at  the  animal,  walked  quietly  away  from  the 
noise.  The  next  moment  a  well-dressed  young  man  passed  the  ale- 
house ;  the  dog  was  out  again  in  an  instant  ;  the  bells  tinkled  and 
the  barking  was  terrible.  The  young  man  was  nettled,  and  thought 
to  quiet  the  cur  by  stoning  him  ;  but  the  dog  growled  furiously  at 
every  stone  that  was  thrown,  and,  coming  nearer,  barking  louder  than 
ever,  took  liberties  with  the  flap  of  the  young  fellow's  coat,  and  finally 
began  to  snap  at  his  legs.  Half  a  dozen  other  dogs,  roused  by  the 
yelping  of  their  brother,  joined  in  the  chorus  ;  windows  were  thrown 
up,  doors  were  opened  on  every  side,  the  business  of  the  neighbor- 
hood was  suspended  to  look  at  the  battle,  and  the  boys  clapped  their 
hands  and  shouted  to  encourage  the  combatants,  till  the  young  man 
was  ready  to  sink  into  the  earth  with  shame." 

Besides  the  inconveniences  so  well  set  forth  by  Burger,  we 
have  another  reason  for  not  indulging  very  deeply  in  these 
quarrels  with  newspapers.  We  must  have  time  for  better 
things.  There  are  graver  questions  to  be  settled  than  those 
which  are  generally  raised  by  the  journalists  which  attack  us. 
When  we  find  any  of  their  arguments  worth  answering,  we 
are  not  backward  to  engage  in  controversy ;  when  we  find  a 
misrepresentation  which  is  likely  to  do  mischief  if  not  cor- 
rected, we  correct  it ;  but  to  mere  scolding  we  are  quite  indif- 
ferent. It  is  evident  that,  if  we  were  to  answer  every  assault 
of  this  kind,  we  should  be  obliged  to  give  up  our  whole  time 
and  the  whole  space  of  our  columns  to  the  answers  we  might 
make.  There  are  two  evening  papers,  and  twice  as  many 
morning  papers,  in  this  city  belonging  to  the  Whig  party  ;  and 
we  have  sometimes  had  all  of  them,  or  nearly  all,  in  full  cry 
upon  us  at  once,  to  say  nothing  of  the  attacks  made  upon  us 
by  the  journals  we  receive  by  the  mails. 

There  are  a  few  prints  which  would  be  sadly  puzzled  for 
matter  out  of  which  to  concoct  the  excellent  speculations  with 


392  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

which  they  daily  edify  their  readers  were  it  not  for  the 
"  Evening  Post."  But  for  the  opportunity  afforded  them  by 
our  journal,  their  facility  of  abuse  might  unfortunately  be  lost 
for  want  of  exercise.  To  such  the  "  Evening  Post  "  is  their 
stock  in  trade,  the  capital  with  which  they  carry  on  business. 
The  "  New  York  Gazette,"  we  believe,  is  one  of  that  class. 
We  do  not  often  see  the  paper,  by  reason  of  which  we  doubt- 
less escape  many  sleepless  nights  ;  but  we  have  "  good-natured 
friends  "  who  often  insist  upon  telling  us  how  cruelly  we  are 
cut  up  in  it.  The  "  New  York  Gazette  "  has  not  been,  we 
believe,  once  alluded  to,  either  for  good  or  for  evil,  in  the 
"  Evening  Post "  for  two  years  past  or  more,  until  the  other 
day  a  Southern  correspondent  deprecated  its  defence  of  South- 
ern rights  as  doing  more  harm  than  good  ;  yet  we  hear  that 
it  rails  at  us  daily  with  the  eloquence  of  ten  fish-women. 

There  is  an  honest  shoemaker  living  on  the  Mergellina,  at 
Naples,  on  the  right  hand  as  you  go  toward  Pozzuoli,  whose 
little  dog  comes  out  every  morning  and  barks  at  Vesuvius. 

Some  of  the  prints  to  which  we  refer  occasionally  indulge 
in  personal  allusions  to  persons  concerned,  or  supposed  to  be 
concerned,  in  the  management  of  this  paper.  With  such  prints 
it  is  manifest  we  cannot  enter  into  controversy. 

Three  or  four  of  the  New  York  daily  journals,  among 
which  are  the  "  Courier  "  and  "  Gazette,"  have  adopted  a  style 
of  political  writing  which  seems  to  be  copied  from  the 
speeches  of  Mr.  Wise  and  his  imitators.  It  consists  of  run- 
ning off  at  the  end  of  the  quill  a  set  of  opprobrious  epithets 
which  answer  for  all  occasions.  These  words  are  profligacy, 
hypocrisy,  perjury,  robbery,  rascality,  and  other  names  of  vices 
and  crimes  that  end  in  y — meanness,  obsequiousness,  perverse- 
ness,  and  the  names  of  all  other  bad  qualities  that  end  in  ness 
— corruption,  degradation,  assassination,  and  every  name  of 
evil  that  ends  in  tion,  with  every  other  possible  epithet  of  vitu- 
peration, of  whatever  ending,  are  put  together,  like  pieces  of 
colored  glass  into  a  kaleidoscope,  and  shaken  up  into  as  many 
different  forms  as  they  will  make.  Arithmeticians  can  tell  by 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  393 

calculation  into  how  many  thousand  different  forms  of  abuse  a 
hundred  different  epithets  may  be  combined.  With  these 
presses,  which  turn  out  railing  accusations  to  order,  as  a  but- 
ton-machine turns  out  buttons,  it  is  evident  that  it  would  be 
folly  to  engage  in  dispute.  In  the  words  of  Pope, 

"  We  wage  no  war  with  Bedlam," 

we  cannot  dispute  with  those  who  never  reason. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  in  these  writers  to  suppose  that  call- 
ing names  without  discrimination  or  selection  is  strong  writ- 
ing. The  sing-song  of  abuse  is  as  easily  learned  as  any  other 
sing-song.  A  parrot  can  be  taught  to  curse  and  swear  as 
easily  as  to  say  "  Pretty  Poll."  Gresset,  in  his  work  entitled 
"  Vert-Vert,"  gives  the  history  of  one  of  these  birds  who  was 
educated  in  a  nunnery,  and  who  said  his  Ave  Maria  and  his  Pa- 
ter Noster  with  an  appearance  of  devotion  which  edified  every- 
body. The  inmates  of  a  distant  convent  were  desirous  to  see 
the  wonderful  parrot,  and,  accordingly,  he  was  sent  to  them  on 
board  a  coasting  schooner.  But  during  the  voyage  the  bird 
learned  other  accomplishments,  and  on  his  arrival  the  good 
sisters  were  struck  with  horror  on  hearing  him  swear  like  a 
boatswain. 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.* 

LEARNED,  eloquent;  always  acute,  though  often  wrong; 
ambitious,  disputatious,  pragmatical,  unforgiving ;  conscien- 
tious, except  when  some  strong  prejudice  or  personal  grudge, 
as  is  too  often  the  case,  opposes  itself  to  his  moral  sense;  aged, 
yet  preserving  in  a  late  old  age  his  intellectual  faculties  as 
vigorous  as  ever,  perhaps  even  sharpened  during  the  last  ten 
years  of  his  life  by  constant  and  intense  exercise  in  quarrels 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  August  4,  1843. 


394 


EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND   CRITICISMS. 


and  controversies  of  every  kind — John  Quincy  Adams  is  one 
of  me  most  extraordinary  men  of  his  country  and  his  time. 
He  is  now  enjoying,  what  it  was  never  his  lot  to  enjoy  before, 
voluntary  demonstrations  of  respect  from  his  fellow-citizens  of 
every  party.  He  has  been  making  a  kind  of  tour  through  this 
State,  and  wherever  he  goes  he  is  welcomed  with  a  formal  re- 
ception ;  speeches  of  compliment  are  made  to  him,  and  he 
makes  speeches  in  return.  At  Auburn,  at  Utica,  at  Herkimer, 
at  Little  Falls,  at  Schenectady,  and  at  Albany  this  ceremoni- 
ous reception  was  had ;  at  the  latter  place  it  seemed  as  if  the 
whole  city  rose  up  to  welcome  him.  We  are  glad  of  this,  for 
Mr.  Adams,  when  we  consider  his  long  public'  life,  has  had  few 
of  those  honors  fall  to  his  share.  While  he  was  President  of 
the  United  States  he  used  to  come  and  go  with  as  little  notice 
as  almost  any  other  passenger  on  the  steamboats  and  stage- 
coaches. Yet  is  he  a  better  and  an  honester  man  than  some 
who  have  snuffed  more  of  this  popular  incense,  owing,  no 
doubt,  to  their  possessing  certain  attractive  qualities  of  char- 
acter which  do  not  belong  to  Mr.  Adams  ?  People  are  shy  of 
approaching  one  who  bristles  with  sharp  points  and  contro- 
versies like  a  porcupine.  For  the  present  there  seems  a  dis- 
position to  forego  that  shyness  and  to  do  honor  to  one  who, 
fifteen  years  ago,  held  the  place  of  Chief  Magistrate  of  our 
nation,  who  was  probably  the  most  learned  man  that  ever 
administered  the  government,  and  who,  in  his  old  age,  has  be- 
come one  of  the  most  dreaded  debaters  of  our  national  Legis- 
lature. The  veteran  politician  wears  gracefully  the  honors 
which  have  been  so  long  in  coming,  and  evidently  enjoys 
with  a  high  zest  the  demonstrations  of  respect  which  are 
paid  him. 


THE  CORN-LAW  CONTROVERSY.  395 


THE  CORN-LAW  CONTROVERSY.* 

A  FRIEND  has  placed  in  our  hands  numbers  of  the  tracts 
which  the  corn-law  reformers  of  England  circulate  among  the 
people.  They  are  about  the  size  and  length  of  the  religious 
tracts  of  this  country,  and  are  put  up  in  an  envelope  which  is 
stamped  with  neat  and  appropriate  devices.  These  little  pub- 
lications comprise  essays  on  all  the  topics  involved  in  the  corn- 
law  controversy,  sometimes  in  the  form  of  dialogues,  some- 
times of  tales,  and  sometimes  of  extracts  from  famous  books 
and  speeches.  The  arguments  are  so  arranged  as  to  be  easily 
comprehended  by  the  meanest  capacities. 

The  friend  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  these  is  well  in- 
formed on  the  subject,  and  says  that  a  more  advanced  state  of 
opinion  prevails  among  the  people  of  England  in  relation  to 
the  operation  of  tariffs  than  in  this  nation,  generally  so  much 
more  enlightened.  It  is  a  singular  spectacle  which  is  thus 
presented  to  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world.  While  the 
tendency  of  opinion  under  an  aristocratic  monarchy  is  to- 
ward the  loosening  of  the  restraints  under  which  the  labor 
of  the  people  has  long  suffered,  a  large  and  powerful  party  in 
a  nation,  whose  theory  of  government  is  nearly  a  century  in 
advance  of  the  world,  is  clamoring  for  their  continuance  and 
confirmation.  Monarchical  England  is  struggling  to  break 
the  chains  which  an  unwise  legislation  has  forged  for  the 
limbs  of  its  trade;  but  democratic  America  is  urged  to  put 
on  the  fetters  which  older  but  less  liberal  nations  are  throwing 
off.  The  nations  of  Europe  are  seeking  to  extend  their  com- 
mercial relations,  to  expand  the  sphere  of  their  mutual  inter- 
course, to  rivet  the  market  for  the  productions  of  their  soil 
and  skill,  while  the  "  model  republic  "  of  the  New  World  is 
urged  to  stick  to  the  silly  and  odious  policy  of  a  semi-barbar- 
ous age. 

*  From  the  "Evening  Post,"  August  24,  1843. 
VOL.  n. — 26 


396  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

We  look  upon  the  attempt  which  is  making  in  Great  Brit- 
ain to  procure  a  revision  of  the  tariff  laws  as  one  of  the  most 
important  political  movements  of  the  age.  It  is  a  reform  that 
contemplates  benefits  whose  effects  would  not  be  confined  to 
any  single  nation  or  to  any  period  of  time.  Should  it  be  suc- 
cessful, it  would  be  the  beginning  of  a  grand  and  universal 
scheme  of  commercial  emancipation.  Let  England — that  na- 
tion so  extensive  in  her  relations  and  so  powerful  in  her 
influences — let  England  adopt  a  more  liberal  policy,  and  it 
would  remove  the  only  obstacles  now  in  the  way  of  a  com- 
plete freedom  of  industry  throughout  the  globe.  It  is  the  ap- 
parent unwillingness  of  nations  to  reciprocate  the  advantages 
of  mutual  trade  that  has  kept  back  this  desirable  reform  so 
long.  The  standing  argument  of  the  friends  of  exclusiveness 
— their  defence  under  all  assaults,  their  shelter  in  every  emer- 
gency— has  been  that  one  nation  cannot  pursue  a  free  system 
until  all  others  do ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  restriction  is  to  be 
met  by  restriction.  It  is  a  flimsy  pretence,  but,  such  as  it  is, 
has  answered  the  purposes  of  those  who  have  used  it  for 
many  centuries. 

The  practice  of  confining  trade  by  the  invisible  but  potent 
chains  of  law  has  been  a  curse  wherever  it  has  prevailed.  In 
England,  more  dependent  than  other  nations  on  the  extent  of 
its  commercial  intercourse,  it  may  be  said  to  have  operated  as 
a  scourge.  The  most  terrible  inflictions  of  natural  evil,  storms, 
famine,  and  pestilence  have  not  produced  an  equal  amount  of 
suffering.  Indeed,  it  has  combined  the  characteristics  of  the 
worst  of  those  evils.  It  has  devastated,  like  the  storm,  the 
busy  hives  of  industry ;  it  has  exhausted,  like  famine,  the  life 
and  vital  principle  of  trade;  and,  like  the  pestilence,  it  has 
"walked  in  the  darkness  and  wasted  at  noon-day."  When 
we  read  of  thousands  of  miserable  wretches,  in  all  the  cities 
and  towns  of  a  great  nation,  huddled  together  like  so  many 
swine  in  a  pen,  in  rags,  squalor,  and  want ;  without  work, 
bread,  or  hope ;  dragging  out  from  day  to  day,  by  begging 
or  the  petty  artifices  of  theft,  an  existence  which  is  worthless 


FRIAR   TUCK  LEGISLATION.  397 

and  a  burden ;  and  when,  at  the  same  time,  we  see  a  system  of 
laws  that  has  carefully  drawn  a  band  of  iron  around  every 
mode  of  human  exertion,  which,  with  lynx-eyed  and  omnis- 
cient vigilance,  has  dragged  every  product  of  industry  from 
its  retreat  to  become  the  subject  of  a  tax — can  we  fail  in 
ascribing  the  effect  to  its  cause,  or  suppress  the  utterance  of 
our  indignation  at  a  policy  so  heartless  and  destructive  ? 

Yet  this  is  the  very  policy  that  a  certain  class  of  politicians 
in  this  country  would  have  us  imitate.  Misled  by  the  selfish 
and  paltry  arguments  of  British  statesmen,  but  unawed  by  the 
terrible  experience  of  the  British  people,  they  would  fasten 
upon  us  a  system  whose  only  recommendation,  in  its  best 
form,  is  that  it  enriches  a  few,  at  the  cost  of  the  lives  and 
happiness  of  many.  They  would  assist  a  constrictor  in  wrap- 
ping his  folds  around  us  until  our  industry  shall  be  com- 
pletely crushed. 


FRIAR  TUCK  LEGISLATION.* 

"  A  famous  thief  was  Robin  Hood  ; 
But  Scotland  had  a  thief  as  good  : 
It  was — it  was  the  great  Rob  Roy." 

Old  Ballad. 

A  SPEAKER,  Mr.  Thomas  Gisborne,  at  one  of  the  recent 
meetings  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League,  made  a  happy  allu- 
sion to  what  he  called  Friar  Tuck  legislation.  He  had  in  his 
mind  the  story  which  is  told  in  some  of  the  old  chronicles  of 
Robin  Hood  and  his  merry  foresters  when  they  were  once 
assembled  in  congress  to  deliberate  upon  the  proper  distribu- 
tion of  a  pretty  large  amount  of  spoils.  These  legislators, 
persuaded  by  the  soft  and  honeyed  words  of  Friar  Tuck,  left 
him  to  frame  a  law  for  the  proper  adjustment  of  their  claims. 

*Froin  the  "  Evening  Post,"  April  26,  1844. 


398  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

When  the  law  was  reported  by  the  able  committee  which  had 
it  in  charge,  it  became  instantly  evident  that  Friar  Tuck  him- 
self would  get  much  the  largest  share.  Public  opinion,  con- 
tinues the  history,  thereupon  went  against  the  holy  man,  and 
a  league  was  formed  to  resist  the  iniquity  of  his  decision. 

Now,  what  did  the  good  friar  in  the  emergency  ?  Why, 
he  met  the  people  boldly  and  openly,  and  said :  "  For  whose 
benefit  are  laws  made,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  "  And  then 
immediately  answering  his  own  question,  lest  some  silly  ob- 
jector might  give  it  another  turn,  he  went  on :  "  First  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  make  them,  and  afterward  as  it  may 
happen."  Nor  did  the  disinterested  judge  stop  there,  but  he 
proceeded  :  "Am  I  not  the  law-maker,  and  shall  I  not  profit 
by  my  own  law  ?  "  The  story  runs,  we  believe,  that  the  good 
man  next  quietly  pocketed  his  share  of  the  booty  and  left  his 
unreasonable  companions  to  make  the  best  of  what  remained. 

Friar  Tuck  represents  a  class ;  he  is  a  type  and  pattern  of 
a  large  circle  of  imitators ;  his  peculiar  method  of  legislation 
is  not  obsolete.  There  are  many  persons  at  this  day  whose 
morality  seems  to  be  framed  according  to  the  same  standard. 
Members  of  the  United  States  Congress,  for  instance,  who 
pass  tariff  laws  to  put  money  into  their  own  pockets,  are  the 
legitimate  descendants  of  Friar  Tuck. 

It  is  quite  remarkable  how  many  are  the  points  of  resem- 
blance between  this  legislation  of  Sherwood  Forest  and  that  of 
the  manufacturers  at  Washington.  In  the  first  place,  the 
plunder  to  be  distributed  is  raised  from  the  people;  in  either 
case  without  their  being  formally  consulted  ;  in  the  one  by 
high  duties,  in  the  other  by  the  strong  arm.  Then  the  persons 
who  take  upon  themselves  to  decide  how  this  plunder  is  to  be 
divided,  like  Friar  Tuck,  have  a  deep  interest  in  the  result, 
and  generally  manage  to  appropriate  to  themselves  the  largest 
share.  They  are  the  owners  of  manufacturing  capital,  and 
they  continue  to  make  this  capital  return  an  enormous  interest. 
"  For  what  benefit,"  they  gravely  ask,  "  are  laws  made  ?  "  and 
then  answer  :  "  First  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  make  them, 


A   CONTRIBUTION  TO  SOCIAL  SCIENCE. 


399 


and  afterward  as  it  may  happen."  Let  us  impose  high  duties; 
let  us  fill  our  pockets  ;  let  us  who  make  the  laws  take  all  that 
we  can  get — and  as  to  the  people,  the  mass  of  laborers  and 
consumers,  why,  that's  as  it  may  happen  !  This  is  virtually 
the  reasoning  of  one  sort  of  our  just  and  disinterested  legisla- 
tors. 

But  there  is  one  point  in  which  the  resemblance  does  not 
hold.  Friar  Tuck  was  a  bold,  straightforward,  open-mouthed 
statesman,  willing  to  proclaim  his  principles,  and  justify 
the  consequences  to  which  they  led.  His  followers  in  Con- 
gress act  upon  precisely  the  same  principles,  but  assign 
another  reason.  He  avowed  that  he  wished  to  cram  his  pock- 
et ;  they  hold  up  some  mock  pretence  of  public  good.  "  Shall 
I  not  benefit  by  my  own  law  ?  "  he  said,  and  gathered  up  his 
gains ;  but  they  gather  the  gain  and  leave  the  reason  unsaid, 
or  rather  hypocritically  resort  to  some  more  palatable  reason. 
The  advantage  of  consistency  is  on  the  side  of  Robin  Hood's 
priest.  There  is  a  frankness  in  his  philosophy  which  throws 
the  sneaking  duplicity  of  the  legislators  of  the  cotton-mills 
quite  into  the  shade. 


LORD  BROUGHAM'S  LAST  CONTRIBU- 
TION TO  SOCIAL  SCIENCE.* 

IT  is  a  gross  injustice  that  applies  the  name  of  scold  to 
individuals  of  the  female  sex  alone.  There  are  male  scolds  as 
well  as  female  ;  there  are  viragos  in  pantaloons,  and  bearded 
termagants.  Fluency  and  volubility  in  abuse  are  never  more 
exemplified  than  in  the  case  of  some  public  speakers.  Henry 
A.  Wise,  afterward  Governor  of  Virginia,  while  a  member  of 
Congress,  was  an  instance  of  this  sort ;  he  was  simply  a 
shrew — a  shrew  never  tamed  except  once  for  a  few  days, 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  October  22,  1863. 


4OO 


EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 


when  John  Quincy  Adams  took  him  in  hand  and  adminis- 
tered so  terrible  a  scathing  that  the  Virginia  member  was  as 
quiet  as  a  lamb  for  nearly  a  week  afterward.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  they  have  a  venerable  termagant  in  plaid 
pantaloons  whom  they  call  Lord  Brougham. 

The  very  physiognomy  of  Lord  Brougham  proclaims  his 
character.  There  is  a  sort  of  portable  stopper  for  claret-bottles 
and  decanters  containing  different  kinds  of  wine,  fashioned  at 
the  top  into  a  resemblance  of  the  human  head,  often  gro- 
tesque. A  likeness  of  Lord  Brougham  would  figure  very 
appositely  as  the  top  of  a  stopper  for  a  vinegar-cruet.  Sour- 
ness and  dissatisfaction  are  written  in  every  line  of  his  face. 
One  can  hardly  believe  that  in  the  veins  which  supply  the 
facial  muscles  there  circulates  any  fluid  milder  than  acetic 
acid.  Lavater,  in  his  physiognomical  works,  talks  of  the 
"  eloquent  mouth,"  the  '•  eloquent  lip,"  in  certain  of  the  faces 
of  which  he  gives  an  engraved  outline.  The  mouth  of 
Brougham  suggests  to  the  physiognomist  the  idea  of  fluent 
speech,  but,  instead  of  dropping  honey,  as  was  said  of  Nestor 
in  the  "  Iliad,"  you  at  once  see  that  it  drops  only  mingled  gall 
and  vinegar. 

This  personage  has  taken  occasion  to  heap  the  grossest 
abuse  upon  Americans  in  the  speech  delivered  by  him  on  the 
seventh  of  October,  when  he  opened  the  annual  session  of  the 
Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science.  This  pre- 
cious contribution  to  the  cause  of  social  science  we  copy  from 
the  London  "  Morning  Herald  "  into  another  part  of  this  sheet. 
According  to  him,  the  Americans  are  the  "  slaves  of  a  national 
vanity  without  example  and  without  bounds — a  vanity  leading 
to  many  crimes,  and  to  that  disregard  of  truth  which  is  the 
root  of  all  offences."  In  short,  the  Americans,  in  his  judg- 
ment, are  a  nation  of  liars.  They  lie  to  the  world,  they  lie  to 
each  other,  they  lie  to  themselves.  They  coin  falsehoods  con- 
cerning the  war,  converting  defeats  into  victories,  by  way  of 
deceiving  Europe  and  keeping  up  their  own  spirits  ;  and  not 
only  concerning  the  events  of  war,  but  concerning  "  every- 


A   CONTRIBUTION  TO  SOCIAL  SCIENCE. 


401 


thing  else — the  measures  of  the  Government  and  the  acts  of 
foreign  nations ;  the  truth  they  will  never  hear."  Their  na- 
tion "  magnifies  itself  and  despises  the  rest  of  mankind."  Its 
people  "  thirst  for  blood  " ;  they  are  "  not  content  with  the 
destruction  of  half  a  million  lives,  but  vain  of  the  slaughter." 
They  "  exult  in  wholesale  bloodshed."  "  Instead  of  feeling 
shame  at  cruel  scenes,  which  modern  ages  have  seen  nothing 
to  equal,  they  actually  glory  in  them,"  etc.,  etc.  This  is  but  a 
part  of  the  flood  of  foul  accusations  and  abusive  epithets 
which  he  pours  upon  the  American  character. 

We  need  not  take  the  pains  to  refute  these  calumnies. 
Those  who  have  observed  the  course  of  events  in  this  country 
with  a  moderate  degree  of  impartiality  are  aware  how  ground- 
less they  are ;  those  who  have  not,  will  probably  never  see 
what  we  write.  One  part  of  the  speech  of  Lord  Brougham 
is  remarkable  enough ;  he  vehemently  condemns  the  orderly 
behavior  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  under  the  extra- 
ordinary measures  to  which  the  Government  has  been  forced 
to  have  recourse  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion.  Their 
"  submission,"  he  says,  "  to  every  caprice  of  tyranny  has  been 
universal  and  habitual,  never  interrupted  by  a  single  act  of  re- 
sistance to  the  most  flagrant  infractions  of  personal  freedom." 
What  he  would  desire,  therefore,  is  a  rising  at  the  North 
against  the  Government,  one  civil  war  within  another,  the  civil 
authorities  set  at  defiance,  and  the  social  order  of  the  free 
States  broken  up,  in  order  that  the  seceding  States  might 
easily  triumph. 

One  of  the  charges  made  against  us  in  this  respect  is  that 
the  proclamation  emancipating  the  slaves  was  "  designed  to 
promote  slave  insurrection."  It  almost  exceeds  the  limit 
of  charitable  construction  to  suppose  that  any  person  with 
Lord  Brougham's  opportunities  of  information  could  say  this 
without  knowing  it  to  be  false. 

There  is  much  said  of  the  perfect  preservation  of  Lord 
Brougham's  mental  faculties  at  the  advanced  age  which  he 
has  reached.  One  talent  the  aged  peer  certainly  retains  in 


402  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

great  perfection,  perhaps  even  in  an  improved  state  —  the 
facility  of  abuse.  It  sometimes  happens,  in  the  last  stage  of 
human  life,  that  some  single  faculty  of  the  mind  starts  into 
preternatural  activity,  predominating  over  all  the  others  and 
exhibiting  itself  at  their  expense.  We  suppose  this  to  be  the 
case  with  Lord  Brougham,  who,  always  more  or  less  a  scold, 
has  become  pre-eminently  so  within  a  few  years  past,  and  now 
finds  a  cheap  and  convenient  indulgence  of  this  propensity  in 
railing  at  the  United  States. 


THE  UTILITY  OF  TREES.* 

WHILE  Congress  is  occupied  with  the  disposition  of  the 
public  lands,  it  has  been  suggested,  by  persons  who  can  think 
of  something  else  besides  railroads,  that  it  will  be  an  act  of 
provident  wisdom  to  reserve  considerable  tracts  of  forest  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  as  the  public  domain,  with  a 
view  of  preventing  the  destruction  of  trees  which  is  so  rapidly 
proceeding,  and  which  may  yet  lead  to  inconvenient  conse- 
quences. One  of  the  objections  to  any  such  measure  as  this 
is  the  difficulty  of  protecting  the  forests  from  depredation. 
What  is  the  public  domain  is  regarded  in  most  parts  of  our 
country  as,  in  a  certain  sense,  common  property,  from  which 
any  man  may  take  what  he  has  occasion  for.  In  order  to  pre- 
vent the  trees  from  being  felled  and  the  public  property 
wasted,  a  body  of  foresters  to  watch  it  and  keep  out  trespass- 
ers must  be  retained  in  the  pay  of  the  Government. 

We  do  not  propose  here  to  discuss  the  merits  of  any  such 
plan,  but  we  would  refer  our  readers  to  the  extracts  we  have 
made  in  another  part  of  this  paper  from  Dr.  Piper's  work  on 

*  From  the  "  Evening  Post,"  June  20,  1865. 


THE   UTILITY  OF   TREES. 


403 


the  "  Trees  of  America,"  as  opening  a  very  important  subject 
for  their  consideration.  We  are  fully  persuaded,  for  our  part, 
that  scarce  anything  is  more  prejudicial  to  the  fertility  of  a 
country,  or  has  a  worse  effect  on  its  climate,  than  the  thought- 
less practice  of  denuding  it  of  trees.  The  effect  is  to  open  the 
region  to  the  winds  which  parch  the  surface  and  dwarf  the 
vegetation,  to  cause  the  springs  to  dry  up,  and  turn  the  water- 
courses into  torrents  in  the  rainy  season  and  dusty  channels 
in  summer  and  autumn.  If  the  public  could  but  be  thoroughly 
convinced  of  this  truth,  it  might,  perhaps,  be  unnecessary  for 
the  Government  to  give  itself  any  concern  about  the  matter 
in  the  disposition  of  the  public  lands.  We  should  see  the 
highways  skirted  by  double  rows  of  trees,  long  lines  of  plan- 
tation following  the  courses  of  the  railroads,  belts  of  forest- 
trees  planted  to  break  the  force  of  the  winds  and  shelter  the 
tender  crops  and  the  orchards  which  bear  fruit. 

Travellers  see  in  the  Orkney  and  Shetland  Isles  a  remarka- 
ble example  of  the  unfavorable  effect  of  the  winds  on  vegeta- 
tion, and  the  kindly  influence  of  shelter.  There,  within  the 
high  garden-walls,  shrubs  and  trees  grow  and  flourish  till 
their  summits  reach  the  top  of  the  wall,  and  beyond  that  they 
do  not  rise.  Strong  winds  sweep  almost  constantly  over  the 
surface  of  the  islands  and  prevent  the  growth  of  any  vege- 
table production  except  those  which  flower  and  perfect  their 
fruit  near  the  surface.  Within  the  enclosures  of  these  stone 
fences,  where  the  wind  is  excluded,  or  in  hollows  which  form 
a  natural  screen,  the  vegetation  is  often  juicy  and  luxuriant. 
Of  the  effect  of  the  destruction  of  forests  in  drying  up  a  coun- 
try the  Old  World  affords  many  remarkable  instances.  The 
poets  and  historians  of  antiquity  speak  of  mighty  forests 
which  are  now  shadowless  wastes,  and  of  streams  that  flow 
no  longer.  Addison  thus  laments  the  disappearance  of  rivers 
and  brooks  celebrated  in  ancient  times  : 

"  Sometimes,  misguided  by  the  tuneful  throng, 
I  look  for  streams  immortalized  in  song 


404  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

That  lost  in  silence  and  oblivion  lie  ; 

Dumb  are  their  fountains,  and  their  channels  dry, 

Yet  run  forever,  by  the  Muses'  skill, 

And,  in  the  smooth  description,  murmur  still." 

The  streams  of  Attica,  now  a  bare  and  treeless  region,  are  for 
the  most  part  but  mere  water-courses,  in  which  the  rains  pass 
off  to  the  sea,  and  disappoint  those  who  form  their  ideas  of 
them  from  the  ancient  writers. 

The  rivers  of  Spain  are  for  the  most  part  only  channels  for 
the  winter  rains.  The  Guadalquivir,  which  some  poet  calls  "  a 
mighty  river,"  enters  the  sea  at  Malaga  without  water  enough 
to  cover  the  loose  black  stones  that  pave  its  bed.  The  Holy 
Land  now  often  misses  "  the  latter  rain,"  or  receives  it  but 
sparingly ;  and  the  brook  Kedron  is  a  long,  dry  ravine,  passing 
off  to  the  eastward  from  Jerusalem  to  descend  between  per- 
pendicular walls  beside  the  monastery  of  Mar  Saba  to  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea.  Mr.  Marsh,  in  his 
very  instructive  book  entitled  "  Man  and  Nature,"  has  col- 
lected a  vast  number  of  instances  showing  how,  in  the  Old 
World,  the  destruction  of  the  forests  has  been  followed  by  a 
general  aridity  of  the  country  which  they  formerly  over- 
shadowed. 

Whether  there  are  any  examples  of  frequent  rains  restored 
to  a  country  by  planting  groves  and  orchards  we  can  not  say  ; 
but  we  remember,  when  travelling  at  the  West  thirty-three 
years  since,  to  have  met  with  a  gentleman  from  Kentucky 
who  spoke  of  an  instance  within  his  knowledge  in  which  a 
perennial  stream  had  made  its  appearance  where  at  the  early 
settlement  of  the  region  there  was  none.  Kentucky,  when  its 
first  colonists  planted  themselves  within  its  limits,  was  a  re- 
gion in  which  extensive  prairies,  burnt  over  every  year  by  the 
Indians,  predominated. 

More  than  forty  years  since  a  poet  of  our  country,  refer- 
ring to  the  effect  of  stripping  the  soil  of  its  trees,  put  these 
lines  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  : 


THE  UTILITY  OF  TREES.  405 

"  Before  these  fields  were  shorn  and  tilled, 

Full  to  the  brim  our  rivers  flowed  ; 
The  melody  of  waters  filled 

The  fresh  and  boundless  wood  ; 
And  torrents  dashed  and  rivulets  played, 
And  fountains  spurted  in  the  shade. 

"  Those  grateful  sounds  are  heard  no  more  ; 

The  springs  are  silent  in  the  sun  ; 
The  rivers,  by  the  blackened  shore, 

With  lessening  currents  run. 
The  realm  our  tribes  are  crushed  to  get 
May  be  a  barren  desert  yet." 

In  all  woodlands  nature  has  made  provision  for  retaining1 
the  moisture  of  rains  long  in  the  ground.  The  earth  under 
the  trees  is  covered  with  a  thick  carpeting  of  fallen  leaves, 
which  absorb  the  power  and  prevent  the  water  from  passing 
immediately  into  the  streams  and  hurrying  to  the  sea.  Part 
of  the  moisture  thus  confined  under  the  fallen  leaves,  and 
shielded  from  evaporation  by  sun  and  wind,  finds  its  way 
slowly  into  the  veins  of  the  earth,  rises  in  springs,  and  runs  off 
in  rivulets  ;  part  is  gradually  drawn  up  by  the  rootlets  of  the 
trees  and  given  off  to  the  air  from  the  leaves,  to  form  the 
vapors,  which  are  afterward  condensed  into  showers.  We 
fear  that  this  statement  of  the  process  is  somewhat  common- 
place, but  we  make  it  here  because,  though  obvious  enough, 
it  is  too  little  in  the  minds  of  those  whose  interest  it  concerns 
to  notice  it.  Thus  it  is  that  forests  protect  a  country  against 
drought,  and  keep  its  streams  constantly  flowing  and  its  wells 
constantly  full  Cut  down  the  trees,  and  the  moisture  of  the 
showers  passes  rapidly  off  from  the  surface  and  hastens  to 
lakes  and  to  ocean. 


4o6          EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE.* 

IT  is  our  purpose  to  present,  within  a  moderate  compass,  a 
view  of  changes,  political  and  social,  occurring  within  our 
Republic,  which  have  an  interest  for  every  nation  in  the  civil- 
ized world,  and  the  history  of  which  could  not  be  fully  written 
until  now.  In  the  two  centuries  and  a  half  of  our  existence 
as  an  offshoot  of  the  great  European  stock  a  mighty  drama 
has  been  put  upon  the  stage  of  our  continent,  which,  after  a 
series  of  fierce  contentions  and  subtile  intrigues,  closed  in  a 
bloody  catastrophe,  with  a  result  favorable  to  liberty  and 
human  rights  and  to  the  fair  fame  of  the  Republic.  Within 
that  time  the  institution  of  slavery,  springing  up  from  small 
and  almost  unnoticed  beginnings,  grew  to  be  a  gigantic  power, 
claiming  and  exercising  dominion  over  the  confederacy,  and 
at  last,  when  it  failed  in  causing  itself  to  be  recognized  as  a 
national  institution  and  saw  the  signs  of  a  decline  in  its  politi- 
cal supremacy,  declaring  the  Union  of  the  States  dissolved, 
encountering  the  free  States  in  a  sanguinary  five  years'  war, 
and  bringing  upon  itself  overthrow  and  utter  destruction. 

We  stand,  therefore,  at  a  point  in  our  annals  where  the 
whole  duration  of  slavery  in  our  country  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  lies  before  us  as  on  a  chart ;  and  certainly  no  his- 
tory of  our  Republic  can  now  be  regarded  as  complete  which 
should  fail  to  carry  the  reader  through  the  various  stages  of 
its  existence,  from  its  silent  and  stealthy  origin  to  the  stormy 
period  in  which  the  world  saw  its  death-struggle,  and  recog- 
nized in  its  fall  the  sentence  of  eternal  justice.  It  is  instruc- 
tive to  observe  how,  in  its  earlier  years,  slavery  was  admitted, 
by  the  most  eminent  men  of  those  parts  of  the  country  where 
it  had  taken  the  deepest  root,  to  be  a  great  wrong  ;  and  how, 

*  From  the  Preface  to  "  A  Popular  History  of  the  United  States.     By  William 
Cullen  Bryant  and  Sidney  Howard  Gay."    New  York,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1878. 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE.  407 

afterward,  when  the  power  and  influence  of  the  slave-holding 
class  were  at  their  height,  it  was  boldly  defended  as  a  benefi- 
cent and  just  institution,  the  basis  of  the  most  perfect  social 
state  known  to  the  world — so  powerfully  and  surely  do  per- 
sonal interests  pervert  the  moral  judgments  of  mankind.  The 
controversy  assumed  a  deeper  interest  as  the  years  went  on. 
On  the  side  of  slavery  stood  forth  men  singularly  fitted  to  be 
its  champions  ;  able,  plausible,  trained  to  public  life ;  men  of 
large  personal  influence,  and  a  fierce  determination  of  will 
nourished  by  the  despotism  exercised  on  their  plantations  over 
their  bondmen.  On  the  other  side  was  a  class  equally  able 
and  no  less  determined  ;  enthusiasts  for  liberty  ;  as  courageous 
as  their  adversaries  were  imperious ;  restlessly  aggressive ; 
ready  to  become  martyrs,  and  from  time  to  time  attesting 
their  sincerity  by  yielding  up  their  lives.  So  fierce  was  the 
quarrel,  and  so  general  was  the  inclination,  even  in  the  free 
States,  to  take  part  with  the  slave-owners,  that  the  name  of 
Abolitionist  was  used  as  a  term  of  reproach  and  scorn  ;  and  to 
point  out  a  man  as  worthy  of  wearing  it  was  in  some  places 
the  same  thing  as  to  recommend  him  to  the  attentions  of  the 
mob.  Yet,  even  while  this  was  a  name  of  opprobrium,  the 
hostility  to  slavery  was  gathering  strength  under  a  new  form. 
The  friends  of  slavery  demanded  that  the  authority  of  the 
master  over  his  bondman  should  be  recognized  in  all  the  terri- 
tory belonging  to  the  Union  not  yet  formed  into  States — in 
short,  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Republic,  wherever  estab- 
lished, should  carry  with  it  the  law  of  slavery.  A  party  was 
immediately  formed  to  resist  the  application  of  this  doctrine, 
and,  after  a  long  and  vehement  contest,  elected  its  candidate 
President  of  the  United  States.  Meantime,  the  rapid  settle- 
ment of  our  Pacific  coast  by  a  purely  free  population,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  opening  of  the  gold  mines,  showed  the 
friends  of  slavery  that  they  were  to  be  hereafter  in  a  minority, 
the  power  of  which  would  diminish  with  every  successive 
year.  They  instantly  took  the  resolution  to  revolt  against  the 
Union,  declared  it  thenceforth  dissolved,  and  rushed  into  a 


4o8  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

war,  in  which  their  defeat  carried  with  it  the  fall  of  slavery. 
It  fell,  dragging  down  with  it  thousands  of  private  fortunes, 
and  leaving  some  of  the  fairest  portions  of  the  region  whence 
it  issued  its  decrees  ravaged  and  desolate,  and  others,  for  a 
time,  given  over  to  a  confusion  little  short  of  anarchy. 

Writers  who  record  the  fortunes  of  nations  have  most  gen- 
erally and  wisely  stopped  at  a  modest  distance  from  the  time 
in  which  they  wrote,  for  this  reason  among  others,  that  the 
narrative  could  not  be  given  with  the  necessary  degree  of 
impartiality,  on  account  of  controversies  not  yet  ended  and 
prejudices  which  have  not  had  time  to  subside.  But  in  the 
case  of  American  slavery  the  difficulty  of  speaking  impartially* 
both  of  the  events  which  form  its  history  and  of  the  charac- 
ters of  its  champions  and  adversaries,  is  far  less  now  than  it 
ever  was  before.  Slavery  has  become  a  thing  of  the  past ;  the 
dispute  as  to  its  rights  under  our  Constitution  is  closed  for- 
ever. The  class  of  active  and  vigilant  politicians  who,  a  few 
years  since,  were  ever  on  the  watch  for  some  opportunity  of 
promoting  its  interests  by  legislation,  is  now  as  if  it  had  never 
been ;  slavery  is  no  longer  either  denounced  or  defended  from 
the  pulpits :  the  division  of  political  journals  into  friends  and 
enemies  of  slavery  exists  no  longer,  and,  when  a  candidate  for 
office  is  presented  for  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow-citizens,  it  is 
no  longer  asked,  "  What  does  he  think  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion ? "  So  far,  indeed,  does  this  fierce  contest  seem  already 
removed  into  the  domain  of  the  past,  and  separated  from  the 
questions  and  interests  of  the  present  moment,  that  when  a 
person  is  pointed  out  as  having  been  a  distinguished  abolition- 
ist he  is  looked  at  with  somewhat  of  the  same  historical  inter- 
est as  if  it  had  been  said,  "  There  goes  one  who  fought  so 
bravely  at  Lundy's  Lane  "  ;  or, "  There  is  one  who  commanded 
a  company  of  riflemen  at  the  battle  of  New  Orleans."  The 
champions  of  slavery  on  one  side — able  men  and  skilled  in  the 
expedients  of  party  warfare,  and  in  many  instances  uncorrupt 
and  pure  in  personal  character — and  the  champions  of  the 
slave  on  the  other,  fearless  and  ready  for  the  martyrdom 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE.  409 

which  they  sometimes  suffered,  their  faculties  exalted  by  a 
sense  of  danger — can  now,  as  they  and  their  acts  pass  in  re- 
view before  the  historian,  be  judged  with  a  degree  of  calm, 
ness  belonging  to  a  new  era  of  our  political  existence. 

But  the  great  conclusion  is  still  to  be  drawn  that  the  exist- 
ence of  slavery  in  our  Repulic  was  at  utter  variance  with  the 
free  institutions  which  we  made  our  boast ;  and  that  it  could 
not  be  preserved  in  the  vast  growth  which  it  had  attained 
without  altering  in  a  great  degree  their  nature  and  communi- 
cating to  them  its  own  despotic  character.  Where  half  the 
population  is  in  bondage  to  the  other  half  there  is  a  constant 
danger  that  the  subject  race  will  rise  against  their  masters, 
who  naturally  look  to  repression  and  terror  as  their  means  of 
defence.  The  later  history  of  slavery  in  our  country  is  full  of 
examples  to  show  this — severe  laws  against  sedition  in  the 
slave  States,  an  enforced  silence  on  the  subject  of  human  lib- 
erty, an  expurgated  popular  literature,  and  visitors  to  the  slave 
States  chased  back  by  mobs  across  the  frontier  which  they  had 
imprudently  crossed.  It  is  remarkable  that,  not  very  long  be- 
fore the  civil  war,  certain  of  the  Southern  journals  began  to 
maintain,  in  elaborate  leading  articles,  that  the  time  had  ar- 
rived for  considering  whether  the  entire  laboring  class,  of 
whatever  color,  should  not  be  made  the  serfs  of  the  land- 
owners and  others  of  the  more  opulent  members  of  society. 

A  history  like  this  would  have  been  incomplete  and  frag- 
mentary had  it  failed  to  record  the  final  fate  as  well  as  the 
rise  and  growth  of  an  institution  wielding  so  vast  an  influence 
both  in  society  and  politics,  with  champions  so  able  and  reso- 
lute, organized  with  such  skill,  occupying  so  wide  and  fertile 
a  domain,  and  rooted  there  with  such  firmness  as  to  be  re- 
garded by  the  friends  of  human  liberty  with  a  feeling  scarcely 
short  of  despair.  To  have  broken  off  the  narrative  before 
reaching  the  catastrophe  would  have  been  like  rising  from 
the  spectacle  of  a  drama  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  act.  Few 
episodes  in  the  world's  history  have  been  so  complete  in 
themselves  as  this  of  American  slavery.  Few  have  brought 


410  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

into  activity  such  mighty  agencies,  or  occupied  so  vast  a 
theatre,  or  been  closed,  although  amid  fearful  carnage,  yet  in 
a  manner  so  satisfactory  to  the  sense  of  natural  justice. 

Here  is  the  place  to  speak  of  another  important  conclusion 
to  be  drawn  from  the  result  of  our  late  civil  war.  It  has 
proved  the  strength  of  our  political  system.  When  the  slave 
States  first  revolted,  it  was  wonderful  with  what  unanimity  the 
people  of  the  Old  World,  even  those  who  wished  well  to  the 
Northern  States,  adopted  the  conclusion  that  the  Union  could 
endure  no  longer,  and  that  the  bond  once  broken  could  never 
be  reunited.  Those  powers  which  had  regarded  the  United 
States  as  a  somewhat  uncomfortable  neighbor,  rapidly  becom- 
ing too  strong  to  be  reasonable  in  its  dealings  with  the  mon- 
archies of  Europe,  fully  believed  that  thereafter  there  would 
exist  on  the  North  American  continent  two  rival  common- 
wealths of  the  same  origin,  yet  so  diverse  from  each  other  in 
their  institutions  as  to  be  involved  in  frequent  disagreements, 
and  thus  to  prove  effectual  checks  upon  each  other,  relieving 
the  European  powers  from  the  danger  of  aggression  in  this 
quarter.  It  was  sometimes  said  by  Englishmen  who  thought 
that  they  were  speaking  in  the  interest  of  humanity  :  "  All  the 
interest  we  feel  in  your  quarrel  is  this,  that  you  should  go  to 
pieces  as  quickly  and  with  as  little  bloodshed  as  possible."  The 
steps  taken  by  Great  Britain  and  France  were  in  accord  with 
the  expectation  of  which  I  have  spoken;  Britain  instantly 
declaring  the  slave  States  a  belligerent  power  —  a  virtual 
acknowledgment  of  their  independence — and  France  posting 
a  dependent  prince  in  Mexico  with  the  view  of  intervening  in 
that  quarter  as  soon  as  it  might  appear  politic  to  do  so.  Till 
the  close  of  our  civil  war  the  armed  cohorts  of  France  hung 
like  a  thunder-cloud  over  our  southwestern  border,  but  the 
hour  never  came  when  the  signal  might  be  given  for  the  grim 
mass  to  move  northward. 

The  period  of  time  at  which  the  nation  inhabiting  the  do- 
main of  our  Republic  came  into  being  is  so  recent  that  we 
may  trace  its  growth  with  as  much  distinctness  as  if  we  were 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE. 


411 


the  contemporaries  of  its  birth.  The  records  of  its  early  exist- 
ence have  been  preserved  as  those  of  no  other  nation  have 
been  which  has  risen  to  any  importance  in  the  annals  of  the 
world.  To  the  guidance  of  these  the  historian  may  trust 
himself  securely,  with  no  danger  of  losing  his  way  among 
the  uncertain  shadows  of  tradition.  It  is  with  a  feeling  of 
wonder  that  he  sees  colonies,  planted  in  different  parts  of  the 
North  American  continent  so  remote  from  each  other,  under 
such  different  circumstances,  and  so  entirely  without  concert 
on  the  part  of  the  adventurers  who  led  them  thither,  united  at 
last  in  a  political  fabric  of  such  strength  and  solidity.  The 
columns  of  the  great  edifice  were  separately  laid  in  the  wil- 
derness, amid  savage  tribes,  by  men  who  apparently  had  no 
thought  of  their  future  relation  to  each  other ;  but,  as  they 
rose  from  the  earth,  it  seemed  as  if  a  guiding  intelligence  had 
planned  them  in  such  a  manner  that  in  due  time  they  might 
be  adjusted  to  each  other  in  a  single  structure.  Those  who 
at  the  outbreak  of  our  civil  war  administered  the  govern- 
ments of  Europe  had,  it  is  certain,  little  confidence  in  the 
stability  and  duration  of  a  political  fabric  so  framed.  It  was 
loosely  and  fortuitously  put  together,  they  thought,  of  ele- 
ments discordant  in  themselves,  whose  imperfect  cohesion  a 
shock  like  that  of  the  southern  revolt  would  destroy  forever. 

It  survived  that  shock,  however,  and,  in  part  at  least,  for 
the  very  reason  of  its  peculiar  structure.  It  survived  it  be- 
cause every  man  in  the  free  States  felt  that  he  was  a  part  of 
the  government;  because  in  our  system  of  decentralized 
power  a  part  of  it  was  lodged  in  his  person.  He  felt  that  he 
was  challenged  when  the  Federal  Government  was  defied,  and 
that  he  was  robbed  when  the  rebels  took  possession  of  the 
forts  of  the  Federal  Government  and  its  munitions  of  war. 
The  quarrel  became  his  personal  concern,  and  the  entire  people 
of  the  North  rose  as  one  man  to  breast  and  beat  back  this  bold 
attack  upon  a  system  of  polity,  which  every  man  of  them  was 
moved  to  defend  by  the  feeling  which  would  move  him  to  de- 
fend his  fireside.  Perhaps  out  of  this  fortuitous  planting  of 


4I2  EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

our  continent  in  scattered  and  independent  settlements  has 
arisen  the  strongest  form  of  government,  so  far  as  respects 
cohesion  and  self-maintenance,  that  the  world  has  seen.  Cer- 
tainly the  experience  of  the  last  few  years,  beginning  with  the 
civil  war,  gives  plausibility  to  this  idea. 

All  the  consequences  of  that  war  have  not  been  equally  for- 
tunate with  this.  It  may  be  admitted  that,  in  some  instances, 
the  influence  of  a  military  life  on  the  young  men  who  thronged 
to  our  camps  was  salutary,  in  bringing  out  the  better  qualities 
of  their  character  and  moulding  it  to  a  more  manly  pattern, 
by  overcoming  the  love  of  ease  and  accustoming  the  soldier 
to  endure  suffering  and  brave  danger  for  the  common  cause. 
Yet  it  is  certain  that  in  other  men  it  encouraged  brutal  in- 
stincts which  had  been  held  in  check  by  the  restraints  of  a 
peaceful  order  of  things ;  that  it  made  them  careless  of  inflict- 
ing pain  and  indifferent  to  the  taking  of  life.  Accordingly, 
after  the  close  of  the  war,  crimes  of  violence  became  fearfully 
numerous,  men  more  often  carried  about  deadly  weapons, 
quarrels  more  often  led  to  homicide,  robberies  accompanied 
by  assassination  were  much  more  frequent,  and  acts  of  house- 
breaking  were  perpetrated  with  greater  audacity.  It  would 
seem  invidious  to  say  that  these  crimes  were  most  frequent  in 
the  region  which  had  been  the  seat  of  the  war ;  but  it  is  cer- 
tain that  there  the  peace  was  often  deplorably  disturbed  by 
quarrels  between  the  white  race  and  the  colored,  which  led  to 
bloodshed.  Thus  the  state  of  society  left  by  the  war  may  be 
fairly  put  to  the  account  of  the  great  error  committed  in  allow- 
ing slavery  to  have  a  place  among  our  institutions. 

But,  while  men  were  watching  with  alarm  these  offences 
against  the  public  peace,  it  was  discovered,  with  no  little  sur- 
prise, that  crimes  of  fraud  had  become  as  numerous,  and  were 
equally  traceable  to  the  war  as  their  cause.  So  many  oppor- 
tunities had  presented  themselves  of  making  easy  bargains 
with  the  agents  of  the  Government,  and  so  many  chances  of 
cheating  the  Government  offered  themselves  in  the  haste  and 
confusion  with  which  most  transactions  of  this  kind  were  ac- 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE.  4!3 

complished,  that  hundreds  of  persons,  of  whom  little  was 
known  save  that  they  had  become  suddenly  rich,  flaunted  in 
all  the  spendor  of  exorbitant  wealth,  and  exercised  the  influ- 
ence which  wealth  commands.  The  encouragement  which 
their  success  and  the  mystery  with  which  it  was  accompanied 
gave  to  dishonest  dealings  was  felt  throughout  the  commu- 
nity, and  the  evil  became  fearfully  contagious.  The  city  of 
New  York  was  a  principal  seat  of  these  enormities.  In  that 
busy  metropolis  men  are  so  earnestly  occupied  with  their  pri- 
vate affairs,  so  absorbed  in  the  competitions  of  business,  that 
it  is  not  easy  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  greater  proportion, 
even  of  the  most  intelligent,  upon  matters  of  public  and  gen- 
eral interest  as  long  as  the  chances  of  individual  success  are 
left  open.  But  the  boundless  waste  of  those  who  had  posses- 
sion of  the  public  funds,  the  sudden  increase  of  the  city  debt, 
and  the  enormous  taxation  to  which  the  citizens  were  sub- 
jected, at  length  alarmed  the  entire  community  ;  the  tax-pay- 
ers consulted  together ;  they  called  in  the  aid  of  the  most  sa- 
gacious and  resolute  men,  who  with  great  pains  tracked  the 
offenders  through  all  their  doublings  and  laid  their  practices 
bare  to  the  public  eye.  The  infamy  of  those  who  were  con- 
cerned in  these  enormities  followed  their  exposure. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  contagious  nature  of  these  ex- 
amples of  corruption.  The  determination  to  effect  a  reform 
and  drag  the  offenders  to  justice,  when  once  awakened,  spread 
with  equal  rapidity.  It  is  remarkable  how,  immediately  after 
the  exposure  of  the  enormous  knaveries  committed  in  New 
York,  the  daily  journals  were  filled  with  accounts  of  lesser 
villanies  in  less  considerable  places.  It  seemed  for  a  while  as 
if  peculation  had  been  taken  up  by  a  large  class  as  a  profession, 
so  numerous  were  the  instances  of  detection.  The  public  vigi- 
lance was  directed  against  every  person  in  a  pecuniary  trust ; 
some  who  had  never  before  been  suspected  found  themselves 
suddenly  in  the  custody  of  the  law,  and  others,  fearing  that 
their  turn  might  soon  come,  prudently  ran  away.  There 
never  has  been  a  time  when  it  was  so  dangerous  for  a  public 


414          EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

man  to  make  a  slip  in  his  accounts.  Investigation  became  the 
order  of  the  day,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the  contents  of 
every  daily  paper  consisted  of  the  proceedings  of  committees 
formed  for  examining  into  the  accounts  of  men  who  held  pe- 
cuniary trusts.  At  first  sight,  it  seemed  as  if  the  world  had 
suddenly  grown  worse ;  on  a  second  reflection,  it  was  clear 
that  it  was  growing  better.  A  process  of  purgation  was  going 
on ;  dishonest  men  were  stripped  of  the  power  of  doing  further 
mischief  and  branded  with  disgrace,  and  men  of  whom  better 
hopes  were  entertained  put  in  their  places.  The  narrative  of 
these  iniquities  could  not  properly  stop  short  of  the  punish- 
ment which  overtook  the  offenders,  and  which,  while  it  makes 
the  lesson  of  their  otherwise  worthless  lives  instructive,  vindi- 
cates to  some  extent  the  character  of  the  nation  at  large. 

In  reviewing  the  history  of  the  last  hundred  years  there 
is  one  question  which  stands  out  in  special  prominence  :  the 
policy  of  encouraging  domestic  manufactures  by  high  duties 
on  goods  imported  from  other  countries.  It  was  recom- 
mended in  the  early  years  of  our  Republic  by  Hamilton,  whose 
authority  had  great  weight  with  a  large  class  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  ;  and  afterward,  under  the  the  name  of  the  American 
System,  was  made  the  battle-cry  of  a  great  party  under  a  no 
less  popular  leader,  Henry  Clay.  But,  after  a  struggle  of  many 
years,  during  part  of  which  the  protective  system  seemed  to 
have  become  thoroughly  incorporated  into  our  revenue  laws, 
a  tendency  to  freedom  of  trade  began  to  assert  itself.  The 
tariff  of  duties  on  imported  commodities  became  from  time 
to  time  weeded  of  the  provisions  which  favored  particular 
manufactures,  and,  although  still  wanting  in  simplicity  of  pro- 
ceeding, and  far  more  expensive  in  its  execution  than  it  should 
have  been,  was  in  the  main  liberal,  and  not  unsatisfactory  to  all 
parties.  The  manufacturers  had  ceased  from  the  struggle  for 
special  duties,  and  seemed  content  with  thdse  which  were  laid 
merely  for  the  sake  of  revenue.  The  question  of  protection 
was  no  longer  a  matter  of  controversy. 

But  the  war  revived  the  old  quarrel,  and  left  it  a  legacy  to 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE. 


415 


the  years  which  are  yet  to  come.  When  the  Southern  mem- 
bers at  the  beginning  of  the  war  withdrew  from  Congress, 
there  were  found,  among  those  whom  they  left  in  their  seats, 
a  majority  who  had  been  educated  in  the  Henry  Clay  school  of 
politics,  and  were  therefore  attached  to  the  protective  system. 
In  laying  taxes  to  supply  the  necessities  of  the  Treasury,  they 
enacted  a  tariff  of  duties  more  rigidly  restrictive  and  of  more 
general  application  than  the  country  had  ever  before  known. 
This  opened  again  the  whole  controversy.  The  struggle  of 
forty  years,  which  had  ended  as  we  have  already  related,  is 
revived  under  circumstances  which  strongly  imply  that  we 
have  the  same  ground  to  go  over  again.  The  manufacturers 
are  not  likely  to  give  up  without  a  struggle  what  they  believe 
so  essential  to  their  prosperity,  and  the  friends  of  free  trade, 
proverbially  tenacious  of  their  purposes,  are  not  likely  to  be 
satisfied  while  there  is  left  in  the  texture  of  our  revenue  laws 
a  single  thread  of  protection  which  their  ingenuity  can  detect 
or  their  skill  can  draw  out. 

The  history  of  our  Republic  shows  that  a  nation  does  not 
always  profit  by  its  own  experience,  even  though  it  be  of  an 
impressive  nature.  Our  Government  began  the  first  century 
of  its  existence  with  a  resort  to  paper  money,  and  closed  it 
with  repeating  the  expedient.  In  the  first  of  these  instances 
slips  of  paper  with  a  peculiar  stamp  were  made  to  pass  as 
money  by  the  authority  of  Congress,  and  were  known  by  the 
name  of  Continental  money,  which  soon  became  a  term  of 
opprobrium.  The  history  of  this  currency  is  a  sad  one — a  his- 
tory of  creditors  defrauded,  families  reduced  from  competence 
to  poverty,  and  ragged  and  hunger-bitten  soldiers  who  were 
paid  their  wages  in  bits  of  paper  scarcely  worth  more  than  the 
coarse  material  on  which  their  nominal  value  was  stamped. 
The  more  of  this  Continental  money  was  issued,  the  lower  it 
sank  in  value.  The  whole  land  was  filled  with  discontent,  and 
the  leaders  of  the  Revolution  were  in  the  utmost  perplexity. 
The  injustice  inflicted  and  the  distress  occasioned  by  this  policy 
are  not  merely  recorded  in  our  annals ;  there  are  many  persons 


4i 6          EDITORIAL   COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

yet  living  who  have  heard  of  them  in  their  youth  at  the  fire- 
sides of  their  fathers. 

Eighty  years  afterward,  in  the  midst  of  our  late  civil  war, 
when  the  necessity  of  raising  money  for  the  daily  expenses  of 
maintaining  and  moving  our  large  armies  from  place  to  place 
upon  the  vast  theatre  of  our  war  began  to  press  somewhat 
severely  upon  our  Government,  the  question  was  again  raised 
whether  the  government  notes  should  not  be  made  a  legal 
tender  in  the  payment  of  debts,  and  the  Treasury  relieved  from 
the  necessity  of  providing  for  their  redemption  in  coin.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  applied  to  some  of  the  most  eminent 
bankers  and  men  of  business,  English  and  American,  for  their 
opinions.  Certain  of  the  wisest  of  these  vehemently  dissuaded 
him  from  a  resort  to  paper  money.  They  pointed  to  the  dis- 
asters which  experience  had  shown  to  have  invariably  attended 
the  measure,  and  urged  him  to  trust  to  the  loyalty  of  the  coun- 
try, of  which  he  had  seen  such  gratifying  proofs  alreadv  given, 
for  obtaining  the  necessary  supplies  of  money  for  the  war. 
This  could  be  done  by  issuing  debentures  payable  at  a  some- 
what distant  date,  and  for  such  moderate  sums  as  persons  of 
moderate  means  could  conveniently  take.  At  all  events,  they 
urged  that  the  expedient  of  resorting  to  paper  money  should 
be  postponed  till  every  other  was  tried  and  the  necessity  for  it 
became  imminent  and  unavoidable.  These  wise  counsels  were 
not  followed.  Others  had  given  their  opinion  that  a  resort  to 
paper  money  was  unavoidable,  and,  after  some  hesitation,  it 
was  resolved  to  take  the  step  immediately.  The  moment  that 
the  project  was  brought  before  Congress  it  found  eager  cham- 
pions, both  on  the  floor  of  the  two  chambers  and  in  the  lob- 
bies; for,  whenever  a  measure  is  proposed  which  involves  a 
change  of  nominal  values,  there  spring  up  in  unexpected  quar- 
ters hundreds  of  patriotic  persons  to  assist  in  hurrying  it 
through  Congress.  The  Government  was  relieved  of  the  obli- 
gation of  paying  its  notes ;  but  a  solemn  pledge  was  given  that 
they  should  be  paid  at  the  earliest  practicable  moment.  While 
the  war  lasted,  we  went  on  making  issue  after  issue  of  these 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE.  4^ 

notes,  with  no  provision  for  their  payment.  Meantime,  the 
prices  of  every  commodity  rose,  and  with  them  the  expenses 
of  the  war — and  speculation  flourished. 

For  eight  years  after  the  war  no  approach  had  been  made 
toward  the  fulfilment  of  the  solemn  pledge  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  although  in  that  time  many  millions  of  the  national 
debt  had  been  paid  off  in  our  depreciated  currency.  So  vast 
was  the  mass  of  promises  to  pay,  and  so  small  the  accumula- 
tions of  gold  within  the  reach  of  the  Government,  that  not  one 
of  those  who  within  that  period  administered  the  Treasury 
Department  ventured  to  propose  any  plan  for  returning  to 
specie  payments,  but,  averting  his  eyes  from  the  difficulty, 
allowed  our  finances  to  drift  toward  an  uncertain  future. 
Then  came  the  panic  of  1873,  which  swept  so  many  large 
banking  and  commercial  houses  to  their  ruin.  Immediately 
a  loud  call  was  heard  for  a  new  issue  of  paper  money  from 
those  who  fancied  that  they  saw  in  the  measure  a  remedy  for 
their  own  pecuniary  embarrassments.  The  question  was  hotly 
debated  in  Congress  ;  a  majority  of  both  Houses  was  found  to 
be  in  its  favor ;  the  pledge  which  bound  the  country  to  return 
to  specie  payments  was  scouted,  as  given  in  ignorance  of  the 
true  interests  of  the  country ;  and  a  bill  was  passed  adding,  as 
President  Grant  observed  in  his  message,  a  hundred  millions 
to  our  depreciated  currency.  Fortunately  for  the  country,  he 
sent  back  the  bill  with  his  objections,  and  it  failed  to  become  a 
law ;  else  the  mischiefs  and  disasters  of  the  days  of  Continental 
money  might  have  returned  upon  us,  with  a  violence  propor- 
tioned to  the  growth  which  our  commercial  interests  had  in 
the  meantime  attained. 

It  is  not  likely  that  this  question  will  again  be  raised  in  our 
day,  and  the  bitter  experience  which  we  have  had  of  the  mis- 
chiefs of  paper  money  in  these  two  instances  will  remain  as  a 
warning  to  the  coming  times ;  though  who  shall  say  with  any 
confidence  that  the  warning  will  be  duly  heeded  ?  But  there 
is  another  controversy  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  late  civil  war, 
which  will  probably  lead  to  acrimonious  and  protracted  dis- 


41 8  EDITORIAL  COMMENTS  AND  CRITICISMS. 

putes,  and  perhaps  be  made,  to  some  extent,  the  basis  of  party 
divisions.     Of  that  I  would  now  speak. 

Before  the  war  the  boundaries  of  the  powers  assigned  to 
the  national  Government,  and  those  which  remained  with  the 
several  States,  were  pretty  sharply  defined  by  usage,  and  at- 
tempts were  but  rarely  made  to  go  beyond  them.  The  lead- 
ers of  opinion  in  the  Southern  States  deemed  it  necessary,  to 
the  security  and  permanence  of  slavery,  that  any  encroach- 
ment of  the  national  Government  on  the  rights  reserved  to 
the  States  should  be  resisted  to  the  utmost ;  and  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that,  although  many  of  them  pushed  the  claim  of  State 
sovereignty  to  an  absurd  extent,  they  did  good  service  in 
keeping  the  eyes  of  the  people  fixed  upon  that  limit  beyond 
which,  under  our  Constitution,  the  national  Government  has 
neither  function  nor  power.  When  the  civil  war  broke  out  it 
was  apparent  that  the  majority  of  those  who  remained  in  Con- 
gress had  not  been  trained  to  be  scrupulous  on  this  point. 
One  of  their  early  measures — the  creation  of  a  system  of  na- 
tional banks — would,  twenty  years  before,  have  been  regarded 
by  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  a  direct 
violation  of  the  Constitution.  Other  measures  were  adopted 
in  the  course  of  the  war  for  which  it  was  impossible  to  find 
any  authority  in  the  Constitution,  and  of  which  the  sole  justi- 
fication was  military  necessity.  As  compared  with  the  state 
of  opinion  which  prevailed  before  the  war,  it  is  manifest  that 
a  certain  indifference  to  the  distinction  between  the  Federal 
power  and  that  of  the  States  has  been  creeping  into  our  poli- 
tics. Schemes  for  accumulating  power  in  the  Government  at 
Washington  by  making  it  the  owner  of  our  railways,  for  ad- 
ministering telegraphic  communication  by  Federal  agency,  for 
cutting  canals  between  river  and  river,  and  for  an  extensive 
system  of  national  education  with  a  central  bureau  at  Wash- 
ington— show  this  tendency.  These  and  kindred  projects  will 
most  certainly  give  ample  occasion  for  protracted  disputes  on 
the  floor  of  Congress  and  in  the  daily  press.  On  one  hand 
will  be  urged,  and  plausibly,  the  public  convenience  ;  and  on 


A  RETROSPECTIVE  GLANCE. 


419 


the  other  the  danger  lest  our  government  of  nicely  balanced 
powers  should  degenerate  into  a  mere  form,  and  the  proper 
functions  of  the  States  be  absorbed  into  the  central  authority 
— a  fate  like  that  predicted  by  some  astronomers  for  our  solar 
system,  when  the  orbs  that  revolve  about  the  sun,  describing 
narrower  and  narrower  circles,  shall  fall  into  the  central  lumi- 
nary, to  be  incorporated  with  it  forever. 

In  looking  over  this  vast  array  of  important  questions  set- 
tled, and  of  new  ones  just  arising  on  the  field  of  vision,  it  is 
difficult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  historian  of  our  Re- 
public would  perform  his  office  but  in  part  who  should  stop 
short  of  the  cycle  of  a  hundred  years  from  the  birth  of  our 
nation.  In  that  period  great  interests  have  been  disposed  of 
and  laid  aside  for  ever  ;  with  the  next  hundred  years  we  have 
a  new  era  with  new  responsibilities,  which  we  are  to  meet 
with  what  wisdom  we  may.  It  is  matter  of  rejoicing  that 
among  the  latest  events  of  this  first  century,  and  following 
close  upon  our  great  civil  war,  we  are  able  to  record  a  great 
triumph  of  the  cause  of  peace  and  civilization  in  the  settle- 
ment of  our  collateral  quarrel  with  Great  Britain — a  quarrel 
which  in  other  times  might  easily  have  been  nursed  into  a 
war.  Let  us  hope  that  this  example  will  be  followed  by  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  in  their  future  controversies. 


INDEX. 


Abbotsford,  Irving's,  i,  356. 

Abolition  riots,  ii,  376. 

Academy  of  Arts,   Mexican,  ii,  178  ;  of 

Design,  New  York,  230. 
Adams,  Rev.  John,  i,  46  ;  John  Quincy, 

«,  393- 

Addison,  Joseph,  quoted,  ii,  403. 
Address,  a  birthday,  ii,  225. 
Agate,  Frederick,  ii,  233. 
Akenside,  Mark,  i,  63. 
Alcayde  of  Molino,  poem,  i,  100. 
Alhambra,  the,  ii,  113. 
Aliatar,  death  of,  poem,  i,  101. 
Alnwick  Castle,  Halleck's,  i,  386. 
American  society  as  a  field  for  fiction,  ii, 

357- 

Analectic  Magazine,  i,  345. 
Astoria,  Irving's,  i,  356. 
Athenaeum,  New  York,  i,  3. 
Attacks,  newspaper,  reply  to,  ii,  390. 

Barlow,  Joel,  i,  50. 
Bird-Catchers,  New  York,  ii,  387. 
Blunder,  the  marriage,  a  tale,  i,  190. 
Bonaventure  (Ga.),  ii,  38. 
Bracebridge  Hall,  Irving's,  i,  348. 
Bravo,  The,  Cooper's,  i,  315. 
Breakfast,  a  Mexican,  ii,  177. 
Brougham,  Lord,  ii,  399. 
Buffalo,  N.Y.,  in  1846,  ii,  51. 
Burgos,  city  of,  ii,  109. 
Burns,  Robert,  i,  30,  158,  375  ;  ii,  314. 
Byron,  Lord,  i,  58,  149,  156,  306,  374. 


Campbell,  Thomas,  i,  346. 

Centralization,  growth  of,  ii,  408. 

Chain-Bearer,  The,  Cooper's,  i,  324. 

Channing,  Dr.,  quoted,  i,  22. 

Chapultepec,  ii,  159. 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  ii,  28. 

Chaucer,  i,  150. 

Chicago,  ii,  60. 

Chippewa  Indians,  ii,  54,  64,  70,  74. 

Cholulu,  ii,  182. 

Cincinnati  in  1832,  ii,  7. 

Clergy,  Mexican,  ii,  157. 

Cleveland  in  1846,  ii,  52. 

Clifton,  William,  i,  53. 

Climate,  effects  of,  on  age,  ii,  375. 

Cock-fight,  a,  ii,  125. 

Coffee  estate,  A,  ii,  130. 

Cole,  Thomas,  ii,  252. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  i,  56. 

College,  Columbia,  i,  406. 

Columbiad,  D wight's,  i,  49. 

Complaint,  Cowley's,  i,  138. 

Connecticut,  Halleck's,  i,  375. 

Conquest     of     Granada,      Irving's,     i, 

354- 

Goody,  Abimelech,  Verplanck's,  i,  403. 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  i,  290. 
Copyright  law,  i,  400. 
Corn-shucking,  ii,  33. 
Corruption,  public,  ii,  412. 
Cowley,  Abraham,  i,  129,  148,  153. 
Cowper,  William,  i,  12,  64,  158. 
Crayon  Miscellany,  Irving's,  i,  356. 


422 


INDEX. 


Criticisms,  editorial,  ii,  348. 
Cuba  and  the  Cubans,  ii,  120. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  ii,  227. 
Darwin's  theory,  cited,  ii,  291. 
Davideis,  Cowley's,  i,  132. 
Death  of  Aliatar,  poem,  i,  101. 
Dryden,  John,  i,  63,  66,  117,  127,  153. 
Dunlap,  William,  ii,  233. 
Durand,  Ashur  B.,  ii,  234. 
Dwight,  Dr.,  i,  49. 

Electric  Telegraph,  ii,  257. 
Emigration,  Commissioners  of,  i,  418. 
English  language,  poets  of,  i,  147. 
Epitaph,  Cowley's,  translated,  i,  144. 
Evidences  of  Christianity,  Verplanck's,  i, 

406. 

Eva,  a  poem,  i,  99. 
"  False  Diamond  set  in  Flint,"  poem,  i,  96. 

Female  troubadours,  i,  103. 
Fenno,  Eliza,  i,  404. 
"Field  of  the  Grounded  Arms,"   Hal- 
leek's,  i,  386. 
Florida,  ii,  34. 
Florence,  a  day  in,  ii,  85. 
France  in  1834,  ii,  83. 
Franklin  as  a  poet,  ii,  329. 
Freedom  of  exchange,  ii,  242. 
Friar  Tuck  legislation,  ii,  397. 
Fruits  and  flowers,  our  native,  ii,  194. 

Garrote,  the,  ii,  138. 

Genius,  i,  37. 

Glance,  a  retrospective  historical,  ii,  407. 

Glimpses  of  Europe,  ii,  83. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang,  ii,  335. 

Goldsmith,  Irving's  Life  of,  i,  359. 

Granada,  visited,  ii,  113. 

Graveyard,  a  negro,  ii,  36. 

Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  i,  228,  369. 
Havana,  city  of,  ii,  120. 


Headsman  of  Berne,  Cooper's,  i,  316. 
Heidenmauer,  Cooper's,  i,  316. 
Holiday,  a  Mexican,  ii,  175. 
Homeward  Bound,  Cooper's,  i,  318. 
Home  as  Found,  Cooper's,  i,  318. 
Homer,  i,  22,  38,  121. 
Honeywood,  St.  John,  i,  53. 
Hopkins,  Dr.  Lemuel,  i,  52. 
Hopkinson,  Francis,  i,  48. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  i,  159. 
Hymn  of  St.  Anselm,  Oldham's,  i,  123. 

Illinois  fifty  years  ago,  ii,  3. 
Indian  Spring,  The,  a  tale,  i,  156. 
Influence  of  liberal  studies,  Verplanck's, 

ii,  414. 

Ingham,  Charles,  ii,  233. 
Inman,  John,  ii,  232. 
Imagination  in  poetry,  i,  6. 
Irving,  Washington,  i,  332. 
Island  of  Cuba,  a  story  of,  i,  262. 
Italian  unity,  ii,  274. 

Jacket,  Red,  Halleck's,  i,  383. 
Jacksonville,  111.,  ii,  13. 
Jack  Tier,  Cooper's,  i,  324. 
Jesuits,  Satires  upon,  Oldham's,  i,  117. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  i,  103,  126,  128 ;  ii,  278. 
Jonson,  Ben,  Oldham  on,  i,  122. 
Juarez,  President  of  Mexico,  ii,  168. 

Keats,  John,  i,  156. 

Knickerbocker  History,  Irving's,  i,  342. 

Kossuth,  Louis,  ii,  189. 

Lear,  cited,  i,  9. 

Legal  opinions  of  Verplanck,  i,  415. 

Library,  the  Mercantile,  ii,  270 ;  Prince- 
ton, ii,  324. 

Lionel  Lincoln,  Cooper's,  i,  310. 

Literary  missionaries,  ii.  328. 

Literature,  Latin  and  Greek,  i,  38  ;  Ger- 
man, ii,  287 ;  Mexican,  ii,  179 ;  Pro- 
vencal, i,  39. 


INDEX. 


423 


Longfellow,  H.  W.,  ii,  228. 
Louisville  (Ky.),  in  1832,  ii,  8. 
Louis,  St.  (Mo.),  in  1832,  ii,  ii. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  ii,  228. 

Mackinaw,  ii,  57,  63,  72,  77. 
Matanzas,  the,  ii,  126. 
Marco  Bozzaris,  Halleck's,  i,  375. 
Marriage  Blunder,  The,  a  tale,  i,  190. 
Masked  ball  in  Cuba,  ii,  126. 
Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  ii,  343. 
Mercedes  of  Castile,  Cooper's,  i,  323. 
Mexico,  visited,  ii,  148  ;  city  of,  154. 
Mexico  and  Maximilian,  ii,  237. 
Miles  Wallingford,  Cooper's,  i,  324. 
Milton,  John,  i,  7,  9,  150,  154,  372,  391. 
Minorcans  in  Florida,  ii,  48. 
Mississippi,  the,  ii,  9. 
Molino,  The  Alcayde  of,  poem,  i,  97. 
Monikins,  Cooper's,  i,  317. 
Monk  of  the  Golden  Isles,  i,  79,  109. 
Moore,  Thomas,  i,  58,  66,  156,  350. 
Moriscan  romances,  i,  93. 
Morse,  Samuel  F.  B. ,  ii,  278. 
Morwent,  Charles,  Cowleys,  ode  on,  i, 

119. 

Municipal  reform,  ii,  294. 
Museum,  Metropolitan,  ii,  261. 
Music  in  schools,  ii,  203. 
Mythologies,  ancient,  i,  28. 

Naples,  in  and  about,  ii,  96. 
Narratives,  i,  161. 
National  honesty,  ii,  332. 
Naval  History,  Cooper's,  i,  319. 
Negotiation  vs.  War,  ii,  284. 
Newspaper  press,  the,  ii,  208. 
New  York  in  early  times,  i,  334. 
Northwest,  the  early,  ii,  51. 
Nostradamus,  John  of,  i,  68,  104. 
Notions  of  the  Americans,  Cooper's,  i,  313. 
Noup  of  Noss,  ii,  104. 

Occasional  addresses,  ii,  183. 
Oldham's  poems,  i,  115. 


Originality  and  imitation,  ii,  35. 
Orizaba,  ii,  151. 

Payne,  Robert  Treat,  i,  54. 

Paper  money,  ii,  415. 

Paris,  ii,  54. 

Percy's  Reliques,  i,  155. 

Phanette  des  Gantelmes,  i,  107. 

Pilot,  The,  Cooper's,  i,  308. 

Pindaric  Odes,  Cowley's,  i,  136. 

Pioneers,  The,  Cooper's,  i,  307. 

Pisa  and  the  Pisans,  ii,  88. 

Poetry,  lectures  on,  i,  3  ;  a  suggestive 
art,  5  ;  value  and  uses  of,  14 ;  rela- 
tions to  times  and  countries,  24  ;  early 
American,  45  ;  of  the  English  language, 
147- 

Poets  and  poetry  of  the  English  Ian- 
guage,  i,  147 ;  Chaucer,  150 ;  Skelton, 
151  ;  Spenser,  152  ;  Shakespeare,  152  ; 
Dryden,  152  ;  Pope,  154 ;  Thomson 
154  ;  Percy's  Reliques,  155  ;  Coleridge 
156;  Southey,  157;  Keats,  159;  later 
poets,  1 60. 

Pope,  Alexander,  i,  41,  57,  59,  60,  124, 
129,  146,  154,  373  ;  ii,  308,  258. 

Prairie,  The,  Cooper's,  i,  311. 

Prairies,  the,  visited,  ii,  15,  18,  20. 

Prairie  Wolf,  ii,  15. 

Proven9al  poets,  i,  37,  68  ;  Rudel,  Geof- 
rey,  78  ;  William  of  Agoult,  80 ;  Ar- 
nauld,  Daniel,  80  ;  Adhemar,  William, 
81 ;  Fouquet  of  Marseilles,  81  ;  Coun- 
tess of  Die,  81,  102  ;  Faydit,  Anselme, 
82, 105  ;  Arnaud  de  Marveil,  83  ;  Ram- 
baud  de  Vagreiras,  83  ;  Vidal,  Pierre, 
84,  104,  112  ;  Durant,  William,  85  ; 
Boniface  of  Castellane,  86,  105  ;  Sor- 
del  of  Mantua,  86  ;  Bertrand  of  Alla- 
manon,  87  ;  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion, 
88  ;  William  of  Amalrics,  89  ;  Peter  of 
Auvergne,  90  ;  Bernard  of  Rascas,  91, 
105,  113  ;  Luco  de  Grymaud,  105 ; 
Raymond  de  Mirevaux  106. 
Puebla,  ii,  153. 


424 


INDEX. 


Pulque,  ii,  182. 

Pyramus  andThisbe,  Cowley's,  i,  131. 

Quarrels  with  the  press,  Cooper's,  i,  320. 

Rattlesnakes,  ii,  15. 

Recorder,  the,  epistle  to,  Halleck's,  i,  376. 

Retrospective  historical  glance,  ii,  407. 

Richmond,  Va.,  ii,  23. 

Romero,  Spanish  minister,  ii,  168. 

Satanstoe,  Cooper's,  i,  324. 

Sault  St.  Marie,  ii,  65. 

Savannah,  Ga.,  ii,  56. 

Schiller,  Frederick,  ii,  215. 

Schools,  Mexican,  ii,  162,  165. 

Scripture  characters  in  dramas,  ii,  361. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  i,  134,  148,  343  ;  ii,  310. 

Sensitiveness  to  foreign  opinion,  ii,  385. 

Shakespeare,  i,  33,  62,  151 ;  ii,  226,  30x5. 

Sheboygan,  ii,  58. 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  ii,  365. 

Shetland  Islands,  ii,  98,  403. 

Skeleton's  Cave,  The,  a  tale,  i,  222. 

Sketch  Book,  The,  Irving's,  i,  347. 

Sketches  of  travel,  ii,  2. 

Slam,  Bang  &  Co.,  ii,  385. 

Slaves  in  Cuba,  ii,  142. 

Slavery,  extinction  of,  ii,  409. 

South,  the  old,  ii,  23. 

Spenser,  i,  65,  152. 

Springfield,  111.,  ii,  15. 

St.  Augustine,  Fla.,  ii,  40. 

St.  Louis,  ii,  II. 

Sunnyside,  i,  358. 

Switzerland,  Sketches  of,  Cooper's,  i,  317. 


Tacubaya,  ii,  161. 

Tales  of  a  Traveller,  Irving's,  i,  351. 

Thompson,  James,  i,  154,  372. 

Tobacco  factories,  ii,  25. 

Tragedy,  on  writing,  ii,  349. 

Translators  of  Homer,  ii,  267. 

Trees,  utility  of,  ii,  402. 

Troubadours,  female,  i,  103. 

Trumbull,  John,  i,  49. 

Two  Admirals,  Cooper's,  i,  323. 

Usury  laws,  ii,  380. 

Vandyke,  Cowley's  ode  on,  i,  140. 
Vera  Cruz,  ii,  148,  1 8 1. 
Verplanck,  Gulian  C.,  i,  394. 
Verse,  trisyllabic  feet  in  iambic,  i,  57. 
Volterra,  visited,  ii,  91. 

Washington,  Life  of,  by  Irving,  i,  360. 
Water-Witch,  Cooper's,  i,  313, 
Ways  of  the  Hour,  Cooper's,  i,  325. 
Webster's  Wit,  ii,  383. 
Wept    of  Wish-ton-Wish,    Cooper's, 

313. 

Willis,  N.  P.,  ii,  228. 
Wing-and-Wing,  Cooper's,  i,  323. 
Winthrop,  John,  ii,  221. 
Wolfert's  Roost,  Irving's,  i,  357. 
Wordsworth,  Wm.,  i,  154. 

Young  America,  Halleck's,  i,  378. 
Young,  Thomas,  i,  68. 

Zetlanders,  the,  ii,  107. 


THE  END. 


V 


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